MARYLAND 

AS  A  PROPRIETARY  PROVINCE 


'?&y&$? 


MARYLAND 


AS   A 


PROPRIETARY     PROVINCE 


BY 


NEWTON   D.    MERENESS 

SOMETIME    UNIVERSITY    FELLOW    IN    HISTORY 
IN    COLUMBIA    UNIVERSITY 


The  English  subjects,  who  left  their  native  country  to 
settle  in  the  wilderness  of  America,  had  the  privileges  of 
other  Englishmen.  They  knew  their  value,  and  were 
desirous  of  having  them  perpetuated  to  their  posterity. 

—  DULANY. 


Nefo  gorft 
THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

LONDON:  MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Ltd. 
1901 

All  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,   1901, 

By  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


NortoooD  ^rtas 

J.  S.  Cushing  &  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith 

Norwood  Mais.  U.S.A. 


PREFACE 

Since  the  founding  of  Maryland,  science  has  given 
man  a  wonderful  mastery  over  the  forces  of  nature,  has 
so  penetrated  the  crusts  enveloping  the  religious  thought 
of  sects  and  nations,  that  man  has  been  found  to  be  the 
maker  even  of  bibles  ;  and  while  thus  causing  him  to  see 
himself  as  the  centre  of  the  universe,  man  has  demanded 
the  right  to  govern  himself.  In  no  other  place  upon  this 
American  continent  is  there  to  be  found  so  good  an  ex- 
ample of  a  people  who,  after  a  struggle  of  nearly  a  century 
and  a  half,  made  the  transition  from  a  monarchical  gov- 
ernment to  a  "  government  of  the  people,  for  the  people, 
and  by  the  people  "  as  in  Maryland ;  and  the  attempt 
has  been  made  in  the  following  pages  to  enable  the  reader 
to  enter  into  the  experience  of  that  people  engaged  in 
that  struggle. 

The  charter,  the  constitutional  basis  of  the  government, 
was  granted  by  a  monarch  who  had  unusually  high 
notions  concerning  the  divine  right  of  kings.  It  bestowed 
on  the  lord  proprietor  the  powers  of  an  absolute  monarch. 
For  many  years  the  province  was  too  sparsely  populated 
to  admit  of  the  development  of  a,  political  life  ;  but  the 
sense  of  individual  freedom  was  strong  from  the  first,  and 
was  encouraged  by  disturbances  from  without  until  a 
successful  revolt  was  effected.  The  revolt  not  only  gave 
the  people  control  of  their  branch  of  the  legislature,  but 
also  extended  the  jurisdiction  of  the  law-making  body. 
An  industrial  development,  a  growth  of  social  pressure, 

V 

92401 


VI  PREFACE 

i 

and  the  immorality  of  the  clergy  then  instigated  the 
people's  representatives  to  encroach  on  the  lord  proprie- 
tor's powers  until  they  became  supreme  in  nearly  every 
department  of  the  government. 

The  author  has  gathered  the  material  for  this  book 
from  original  matter,  of  which  the  greater  part  exists 
only  in  manuscript ;  and  although  the  leading  facts  have 
been  found  in  the  assembly  journals  and  council  records, 
yet  the  land  office  records,  the  more  important  wills,  the 
Maryland  Gazette,  and  numerous  letters  have  been  drawn 
upon  in  the  effort  to  get  nearer  to  the  life  of  the  people 
and  thereby  present  the  reader  with  a  more  lifelike 
picture. 

The  book  has  been  written  as  a  dissertation  for  the 
degree  of  Doctor  of  Philosophy  in  Columbia  University, 
and  the  author  desires  to  express  his  sense  of  obligation 
to  the  friends  of  the  university  as  well  as  to  those  mem- 
bers of  its  faculty  who  have  given  him  encouragement  and 
assistance ;  but  especially  does  he  wish  to  acknowledge 
his  indebtedness  to  Professor  Herbert  L.  Osgood,  at  whose 
suggestion  the  work  was  undertaken  and  under  whose 
guidance  it  has  been  carried  on,  for  whatever  measure  of 
success  has  been  attained. 

Acknowledgment  is  also  due  to  Drs.  F.  E.  Sparks, 
B.  C.  Steiner,  G.  A.  Leakin,  and  Mr.  John  Gatchell  of 
the  Maryland  Historical  Society,  and  Mr.  L.  H.  Dielman 
of  the  State  Library,  for  assistance  in  the  search  for 
material. 


NEWTON   D.   MERENESS. 


New  York  City, 
June,  1901. 


CONTENTS 
INTRODUCTION 

PAGE 

The  Evolution  of  the  Proprietary  Province : 

England  vs.  Spain 1 

The  earliest  English  patents  for  colonization      ....  2 

Trade  and  the  corporate  colony 2 

Land  tenure,  border  defence,  and  the  proprietary  province        .  3^ 

The  British  Empire  and  the  royal  province  ....  4 

The  Maryland  Charter : 

Absolutism  in  England  at  the  time  it  was  granted      ...  5 
Its  monarchical  nature  and  its  early  mediaeval  origin          .         .6 

The  lord  proprietor's  territorial  rights J7 

The  lord  proprietor's  governmental  rights  .         .        .  .  7 

Rights  reserved  to  the  crown       • 8 

Rights  guaranteed  to  the  people 8 

The  charter's  double  aspect 9 

Its  elasticity 9 

Forces  determining  the  Development  of  the  Proprietary  Government :  /C. 

(a)  The  democratic  tendencies  in  the  New  World      ...  10 
(6)  Disturbances  from  without : 

The  petition  of  the  Virginians  against  the  Maryland  charter  11 

Claiborne  vs.  Maryland     . 13 

Cornwallis,  Ingle,  and  the  English  civil  war     .         .         .18 

The  Claiborne  and  Ingle  rebellion 20 

The  seizure  of  the  government  by  the  Puritan  commis- 
sioners   21 

The  Fendall  rebellion 26 

The  boundary  dispute  between  William  Penn  and  Lord 

Baltimore 29 

The  Protestant  Revolution  of  1689    .        .        .  .  33  ,. 

The  royal  government  —  increase  in  the  power  of  the 

representative  body 42 

(c)  Industrial,  social,  and  political  development         ...  44 
vii 


Vlll  CONTENTS 

PART    I 

TERRITORIAL  AND  SOCIAL  RELATIONS 

CHAPTER   I 

Land  and  the  Land  Office 

PAGE 

The  Feudal  Features  of  the  Land  System 49 

Ownership : 

The  granting  of  land 50 

Steps  by  which  title  was  acquired 51 

Freeholds 52 

Manors 52 

Proprietary  manors  and  reserves 53 

Vacant  lands 54 

Surplus  lands 55 

Escheated  lands 56 

Loss  of  the  essentials  of  a  fief  on  the  side  of  ownership      .         .  58 

Jurisdiction,  or  the  Administration  of  the  Land  Office  : 

Three  distinct  periods 58 

The  early  development  of  the  system  of  administration       .         .  58 

The  formal  erection  of  the  land  office 60 

Public  vs.  private  nature  of  the  land  office  during  the  period  of 

royal  government  .         .         . 61 

Governor  vs.  agent  upon  the  restoration  of  the  proprietary  gov- 
ernment .         .        .         .         .         .  .         .         .         .63 

The  private  side  of  the  office  after  the  Restoration      .  .65 

The  public  side  of  the  office  after  the  Restoration        ...  69 
The  final  contest  over  the  question  as  to  whether  the  office 
should  be  treated  as  public  or  as  private        .                 ..72 

CHAPTER  II 

Territorial  Revenue 

Grounds  for  Opposition  to  Territorial  Revenue          ....  76 

Purchase  Money  paid  for  Land 76 

Complaint  about  the  price  asked  for  vacant  lands       ...  77 
Quh^Eaete  : 

Gradual  increase  of  the  rate 78 

Payment  of  the  rents  in  tobacco  at  twopence  per  pound     .         .  79 

A  full  equivalent  for  the  rents 79 

Jealousy  with  respect  to  it 80 


CONTENTS  ix 

PAGE 

Expiration  of  the  law  by  which  it  had  been  given       ...  82 

Regret  of  the  people  for  its  loss 82 

Failure  to  obtain  another 83 

Raising  and  lowering  of  the  rents  in  new  grants          ...  85 

Alienation  Fines : 

Successful  resistance  to  the  demand  for  alienation  fines  on  lands 

devised 85 

Difficulty  in  securing  payment  of  other  alienation  fines      .         .  86 

Ferry  Licenses,  controversy  over 87 

Port  Duties,  controversy  over 89 

Collection  of  the  Revenue  : 

Rentrrolls 92 

Collectors 92 

Rent-roll  keepers         .         .         . 93 

Farming  of  the  rents 93 

Charges  of  extortion 93 

Success  of  the  Proprietor  in  preserving  his  Rights  to  the  Territorial 

Revenue 94 

Amount  of  the  Revenue 94 

Its  Effect  upon  the  Government 95 


CHAPTER   III 

The  Activity  of  the  Assembly  in  Territorial  Affairs 

The  Mediaeval  Fief  vs.  the  Maryland  Assembly  ....      96_ 

The  Lord  Proprietor  fails  to  induce  the  Assembly  to  provide  the 

Province  with  the  Military  Features  of  a  Fief        ...       96 
The  Lord  Proprietor  concedes  to  the  Assembly  the  Right  of  initiat- 
ing Legislation 97 

Legislation  in  Support  of  the  Lord  Proprietor's  Territorial  Jurisdic- 
tion previous  to  1689 97 

Legislation  against  the  Proprietor  during  the  Period  of  Royal  Gov- 
ernment   97 

The  Lord  Proprietor  disallows  the  Act  for  determining  the  Bounds 

of  Estates 98 

Growing  Disaffection  between  Landlord  and  Tenants  .      99 

The  Imposition  of  a  Tax  on  the  Cultivated  Part  of  the  Proprietary 

Estates 99 

The  Attempt  to  tax  the  Proprietor's  Quit-rents  ....     100 

Effective  Resolves  of  the  Lower  House 101 

The  People  and  their  Representatives  against  Escheat       .         .         .     102 


X  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  IV 
JThe  Industrial  Development 

-_^^  PAGE 

The  Prevalence  of  the  Economic  Motive    .        '.    "    .        .        .        .104 
The  Tobacco  Industry,  through  Difficulty  in  regulating  itr  promotes 
the  Cause  of  Popular  Government: 

The  small  planters  are  jealous  of  the  large  planters    .    .    .        .  106 
In  the  interest  of  the  small  planters  the  lord  proprietor  disallows 

the  act  for  requiring  a  cessation  from  planting      .         .         .  108 

Failure  of  attempts  to  limit  the  number  of  ports         .         .         .  100 

Failure  of  the  attempt  to  make  a  law  against  deceitful  packing .  110 

A  critical  condition 110 

Officers'  fees  and  dues  to  the  clergy  become  the  great  obstacles 

to  a  regulation Ill 

Failure  of  the  law  limiting  the  number  of  plants         .         .         .113 
The  Virginia  inspection  law  makes  the  condition  still  more 

critical  in  Maryland 114 

The  passage  of  the  Maryland  inspection  act        .         .         .         .117 

It  causes  the  price  of  tobacco  to  advance 118 

The  Growth  of  Other  Industries  leads  both  to  Industrial   Inde- 
pendence and  to  Popular  Government : 
Early  attempts  to  encourage  the  sowing  of  grain,  the  planting  of 

corn,  and  the  raising  of  stock 120 

The  growing  of  hemp  and  flax  is  recommended  ....  121 

The  Palatines  open  the  resources  of  Frederick  County       .        .  122 

Wheat  growing 123 

Iron  manufacture 123 

Road  making 124 

Exports 125 

Currency  and  public  credit. 126 


CHAPTER  V 

The  Social  Development 

The  Dependence  of  Political  Activity  upon  Social  Conditions   .        .  129-^ 

Absence  of  Social  Pressure  in  the  Seventeenth  Century     .         .         .  130 
In  the  Eighteenth  Century  the  Facilities  for  Intercourse  and  the 

Population  increase 131 

TJie  Divergence  of  Extremes_bejja££fiQJ>ocial  Classes : 

Slaves 132 

Servants 133 


CONTENTS 


XI 


PAGE 

Paupers 136 

Insolvent  debtors 136 

Failure  to  educate  the  children  of  the  middle  class      .        .        .  137 

The  favored  sons  are  educated  in  schools  outside  of  the  province  145 

The  educated  become  lawyers 145 

Alliance  between  the  lawyers  and  the  uneducated  commonalty  .  146 

The  affluence  of  the  upper  social  extreme 147 

Concentration  of  wealth  and  power 148 

The  Opposition  to  the  Government  is  invigorated  by  the  Lawyers 

and  the  Existence  of  High  Social  Pressure-    .        .        .        .149 


PART   II 


GOVERNMENT 


CHAPTER   I 


The  Executive 


1715 


The  Lord  Proprietor : 

His  position  at  the  head  of  the  official  system 

The  personality  of  each  lord  proprietor 

Exercise  of  control  through  his  governor     . 

Exercise  of  control  through  other  officers    . 

Exercise  of  control  through  the  veto  . 
The  Governor  : 

Powers  and  duties 

Instructions  from  his  superior     . 

The  personality  of  each  governor  from  the  year 

Salary 

The  Council : 

Duties  .  

Size      .         .         .         

Tenure         ........ 

Decrease  in  the  amount  of  business  transacted  in  council 

Concentration  of  offices  in  the  council 

Character  of  the  members  of  the  council     . 

The  maintenance  of  the  council  . 
The  Official  System  under  the  Governor  and  Council 

Creation  of  offices 


153 
154 
158 
158 
159 

159 
161 
163 
171 

174 
175 
175 
175 
176 
177 
181 

184 


0 


Xll  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Appointment  of  officers .  186 

Centralization  and  sale  of  offices 190 

Fees  of  office        .        .  191 

Popular  Criticism  of  the  Official  System 192 

CHAPTER  II 
The  Legislature 


The  Durham  Assembly 

Its  limited  legislative  activity                               *  194 

The  Lord  Proprietor's  Charter  Eight  with  Respect  to  calling  the 

Maryland  Assembly 195 

At  First  the  Freemen  assembled  in  Person  or  by  Proxy    .         .         .195 

Representation  is  established .196 

The  Assembly  is  divided  into  Two  Houses 197 

The  Upper  House : 

Its  membership 197 

Its  organization .  198 

The  Lower  House  : 

Suffrage 198 

Qualifications  of  delegates 199 

Compulsory  voting 201 

The  unit  of  representation 201 

The  control  over  election  writs  passes  from  the  lord  proprietor 

to  the  Assembly 201 

Annual  assemblies       .         .         . 206 

Triennial  elections 206 

Decline  of  the  lord  proprietor's  power  to  call,  prorogue,  and 

dissolve  the  Assembly 207 

The  control  over  the  conduct  of  elections  passes  from  the  lord 

proprietor  to  the  Assembly 208 

Party  spirit  and  electioneering 212 

Voting 212 

The  lower  house  becomes  the  judge  of  the  elections,  returns, 

and  qualifications  of  its  own  members 213 

The  lower  house  seeks  to  preserve   the  independence  of  its 

members 213 

Ability  and  parliamentary  skill  of  the  delegates  .        .        .215 

Pay  to  assemblymen 218 

Officers                 .       • 219 

Committees 220 


CONTENTS  xiii 


PAGE 

Parliamentary  Procedure   .        .        . 221 

The  Lord  Proprietor  gives  up  his  Claim  to  the  Sole  Right  of  initiat- 
ing Legislation 222 

Money  Bills  originate  only  in  the  Lower  House         .        .        .        .  224 

Decline  of  the  Lord  Proprietor's  Veto  Power    .....*  225 
The  Resolutions  of  the  Lower  House  have  much  of  the  Force  of 

Laws 226 


CHAPTER  III 

The  Administration  of  Justice 

Theory  and  Practice  with  Respect  to  Justice 228 

The  Establishment  of  Courts  previous  to  1689  : 

The  court  of  appeals 229 

The  provincial  court    .         .  ! 229 

Manorial  courts 230 

Hundred  courts 230 

County  courts 231 

Justices  court  for  the  recovery  of  small  debts     ....  232 

The  chancery  court 232 

The  admiralty  court 233 

The  probate  court        . 233 

Centralization  previous  to  the  Revolution  of  1689      ....  233 

Decentralization  under  the  Royal  Government '  234 

The  Lord  Proprietor  is  denied  the  Right  of  erecting  Courts       .         .  235 

The  Establishment  of  Circuit  Courts  by  Act  of  Assembly         .        .  237 
Jurisdiction  of  Each  of  the  Courts  : 

That  of  the  county  courts  is  extended 237 

That  of  the  provincial  court  is  restricted 239 

That  of  the  court  for  the  recovery  of  small  debts  is  extended     .  241 

That  of  the  chancery  court  is  restricted 242 

That  of  the  commissary  general,  or  judge  of  probate,  vs.  that  of 

the  deputy  commissary  in  each  county 243 

Appeals 245 

Judicial  Procedure 246 

The  Number  of  Justices 247 

Appointment  of  Justices .  247 

Salary  of  Justices 248 

Attempts  to  increase  that  of  the  chief  justice  of  the  provincial 

court 250 

Incompetency  of  the  Justices  of  the  Provincial  Court        .        .        .  251 


XIV  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Keform  of  the  Provincial  Court 252 

Character  of  the  Justices  of  the  County  Courts         ....  253 

Corporal  Punishment  and  the  Criminal  Code 254 

Prisons 255 

The  Long  and  Vehement  Contest  over  the  Question  of  the  Extension 
of  the  English  Statutes  to  Maryland  : 

The  early  tendency  against  such  extension          ....  257 

On  the  eve  of  the  Revolution  of  1689  the  lower  house  demands  • 

that  the  people  shall  have  their  right  to  those  statutes  .        .  264 
The  royal  government  more  favorable  to  the  extension,  but  the 

question  is  left  unsettled 265 

The  lord  proprietor,  from  1722  to  1732,  stubbornly  resists  the 

extension 267 

The  charter  and  the  resolves  of  the  lower  house  in  regard  to  the 

matter 268 

The  judge's  oath 270 

Dulany,  the  leader  in  the  lower  house  and  the  author  of  a 

pamphlet 275 

The  lower  house  triumphant        ........  276 


CHAPTER   IV 

Military  Affairs 

The  Dependence  of  the  Lord  Proprietor  upon  the  People  for  Military 

Protection 279 

The  Training  and  Discipline  of  the  Militia  : 

Weakness  of  the  militia  laws 280 

Contention  that  those  laws  had  expired 287 

Arms  and  Ammunition  : 

A  part  of  the  tobacco  duty  as  a  fund  for  the  purchase  of  them  .     290 
The  lord  proprietor  charged  with  not  purchasing  as  the  fund 

provided  .  291 

The  crown  directs  that  one-fourth  of  the  duty  be  a  fund  for  that 

purpose 291 

A  new  dispute  with  respect  to  that  duty  arises  in  the  year  1739    293 
The  lower  house  wins  a  series  of  triumphs  in  the  course  of  the 

dispute 294 

No  fund  for  that  purpose  after  the  year  1749      ....     302 
Fortifications : 

Coast  fortifications  and  the  tonnage  duty 303 


CONTENTS  XV 

PAGE 

Forts  on  the  Pennsylvania  border  because  of  the  boundary 

dispute 306 

Forts  on  the  western  frontier  for  protection  from  the  Indians   .     307 
War  Powers  of  the  Governor  : 

No  tax  or  imposition  without  the  consent  of  "the  lower  house      .    310 
No  war  outside  of  the  province  without  the  consent  of  the  lower 

house 310 

The  lower  house  attempts  to  instruct  commissioners  to  a  peace 

conference 311 

The  lower  house  nearly  annihilates  the  governor's  power  over 

the  militia 312 

Supply  Bills  for  carrying  on  War  : 

The  attempt  of  the  lower  house  to  appropriate  the  license 

money  from  ordinaries 319 

The  attempt  of  the  lower  house  to  increase  the  duty  on  convicts 

and  to  weaken  the  war  powers  of  the  governor      .         .         .     325 
The  feeling  of  Protestants  against  Catholics  makes  the  lower 

house  more  hostile  to  the  government 326 

The  lower  house  vs.  the  governor  and  his  secretary    .        .        .     330 
The  lower  house  seeks  to  encroach  on  the  royal  prerogative       .     332 
The  lower  house  claims  the  sole  right  of  nominating  com- 
missioners        333 

The  lower  house  insists  on  imposing  a  double  tax  on  Catholics  .     333 
The  lower  house  seeks  to  tax  the  proprietor's  quit-rents  and 

uncultivated  estates 333 

The  lower  house  seeks  to  tax  lucrative  offices     ....     333 
The  conditions  existing  during  the  fourth  intercolonial  war 

favorable  to  the  rise  of  popular  government  ....     338 


CHAPTEE   V 

Finance 

Importance  attached  to  Money  Matters 339 

Taxes : 

(a)  Property  tax 340 

(6)  Poll  tax .  341 

Who  were  taxables  ? 341 

Preparation  of  the  lists  of  taxables   .        .        .        .  342 
Passing  accounts,  imposing,  assessing,  apportioning,  and 

collecting  the  tax 342 


XVI  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Duties 343 

The  collection  of  duties 343 

Annual  Receipts  from  Taxes  and  Duties 343 

Controversy  over  the  Tobacco  Duty  for  the  Support  of  Government  344 
From  the  year  1739  the  lower  house  contended  that  its  collection 

was  illegal 345 

Trouble  in  building  a  House  for  the  Governor 349 

After  expending  the  appropriation  of  four  thousand  dollars  it 

was  not  enclosed 352 

The  roof  falls 353 

Controversy  over  the  License  Money  from  Ordinaries  : 

Previous  to  1689  the  lord  proprietor  gave  it  to  the  secretary       .  354 
Under  the  royal  government  the  secretary  claimed  it  for  himself 

while  the  lower  house  claimed  it  for  the  country  .        .        .  354 

Governor  Hart  claimed  it  for  the  crown 355 

From  1717  to  1739  it  was  given  to  the  lord  proprietor         .        .  356 

From  1740  to  1763  it  was  appropriated  for  war  purposes    .         .  357 
The  council  then  declined  to  support  the  lord  proprietor's  claim 

and  he  gave  it  up 358 

Controversy  over  Money  arising  from  Fines  and  Forfeitures     .        .  360 

Controversy  over  the  Allowance  to  the  Council         ....  362 

In  the  year  1747  the  allowance  was  made  for  the  last  time         .  367 

Controversy  over  paying  the  Clerk  of  the  Council     ....  368 
The  Contest  over  Officers'  Fees  : 

The  right  to  fix  their  amount  claimed  as  incidental  to  the  right 

of  creating  offices  and  appointing  officers       ....  373 
Previous  to  1689  they  were  usually  fixed  and  regulated  by  the 

governor  and  council .  374 

Upon  the  establishment  of  the  royal  government  they  were  fixed 

and  regulated  by  act  of  assembly 375 

Reduction  of  them  in  1719 375 

Unsuccessful  attempt  of  the  lower  house  to  have  them  reduced 

one-half  in  1724 378 

Without  any  regulation  from  1725  to  1733 .        .        .        .        .379 
From  1733  to  1747  they  were  fixed  and  regulated  by  the  lord 

proprietor's  proclamation 381 

From  1747  to  1770  they  were  fixed  and  regulated  by  the  act 

which  provided  for  the  inspection  of  tobacco          .         .         .  386 
In  1770  the  attempt  of  the  lower  house  to  correct  abuses  and  to 

make  some  reductions  resulted  in  the  loss  of  the  old  law       .  386 

The  old  table  then  continued  by  the  governor's  proclamation     .  389 

Controversy  in  the  Assembly  over  the  proclamation  .        .        .  389 


CONTENTS  XV11 

PAGE 

Charles  Carroll  vs.  Daniel  Dulany  and  the  proclamation    .        .  393 

Uprising  of  the  people  at  the  polls  against  the  proclamation       .  399 
Popular  leaders  contended  that  the  people  at  the  polls  were  the 

ultimate  authority  .  .        .        .     •   .        .        .        .  399 


CHAPTER  VI 
Local  Government 

The  Lack  of  Facilities  for  Intercourse  increased  the  Importance 

attached  to  Local  Affairs 401 

The  Increasing  Number  of  Divisions 401 

The  County  : 

Functions  of  the  county  court 403 

Taxing  power  of  the  county  court 404 

The  almshouse  and  workhouse 405 

The  school 405 

The  Hundred  : 

Its  functions  before  the  erection  of  counties       ....  406 

It  becomes  a  constablewick "       .  406 

Duties  of  the  constable 406 

The  hundred's  representation  in  the  county  court      .        .         .  406 
Functions  increase  toward  the  end  of  the  proprietary  govern- 
ment         407 

The  Manor  : 

Its  officers  and  courts 408 

Examples  of  the  business  transacted  in  the  courts      .        .        .  408 

The  Parish  : 

Its  officers 410 

Powers  and  duties  of  the  vestry  and  church  wardens  .        .411 

Towns : 

General  town  acts 413 

Particular  town  acts    '. 414 

Town  commissioners  and  their  directions  for  laying  out  towns  .  415 

The  government  of  Annapolis  before  it  became  a  city         .         .  416 

The  government  of  Charles-Town  on  Northeast  River        .        .  417 

The  government  of  Baltimore 418 

Town  government  in  general 419 

Cities  : 

St.  Mary's 419 

Annapolis : 


XV111  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Its  officers,  their  appointment  or  election,  and  their  term  of 

office 420 

-The  powers  and  duties  of  the  corporation 421 

Courts       ' 421 

Extension  of  suffrage  and  extension  of  the  privileges  of  the  free- 
holders .        . 422 

The  lower  house  vs.  the  governor  with  respect  to  granting  the 
charter 422 


CHAPTER  VII. 
ligion,  the  Church,  and  the  Clergy 


Social  Expediency  the  Basis  of  Law 423 

The  Lord  Proprietor's  Promise  of  Religious  Toleration     .        .        .  424 

The  Jesuit  Priests : 

Their  claim  that  the  canon  law  prevailed  proprio  vigore    .        .  426 

Their  requests  and  the  strength  of  their  party    ....  427 

The  lord  proprietor  in  the  contest  with  them      ....  428 

Toleration  in  Practice : 

Protestant  opposition  the  support  of  the  Claiborne  and  Ingle 

rebellion 430 

The  governor  and  council  bound  by  oath  to  promote  toleration  431 , 

The  toleration  act 432 

Intolerance  of  the  Puritans 434 

Trouble  with  the  Quakers 435 

Catholic  government  vs.  Protestant  lower  house         jOfBEL        .  435 

Increase  of  Protestant  opposition 436 

Protestant  opposition  the  principal  support  of  the  Revolution  of 

1689 437 

The  Establishment  of  the  Church  of  England 437 

Dr.  Bray  vs.  Quakers  and  Catholics 439 

Attempts  to  establish  Episcopal  Authority  : 

Dr.  Bray's  efforts 440 

Governor  Seymour's  opposition 441 

The  Assembly  attempts  to  establish  a  spiritual  court  .         .  442 

The  Bishop  of  London  appoints  two  commissaries      .         .         .  443 

Failure  to  establish  their  authority  by  act  of  assembly       .        .  446 

The  lower  house  vs.  the  clergy  and  episcopal  authority       .        .  447 

Appointment  of  Mr.  Henderson  as  sole  commissary   .        .         .  448 

The  lord  proprietor  vs.  the  Bishop  of  London     ....  449 

Mr.  Henderson  left  without  power  lays  down  his  office      .         .  450 


CONTENTS  *        xix 


PAGE 


The  lord  proprietor  uses  his  right  of  patronages  and  advowsons 
of  churches  as  a  means  of  finding  places  of  profit  for  his 

ignoble  friends 450 

Another  attempt  of  the  Assembly  to  establish-  a  spiritual  court  .     451 

In  vain  the  clergy  again  ask  for  a  bishop 452 

A  spiritual  court  established  by  act  of  assembly         .        .        .     452 
Lack  of  Foresight  in  providing  for  the  Maintenance  of  the  Clergy  : 

Size  of  parishes 453 

Dues  to  the  clergy  and  the  regulation  of  the  tobacco  industry    .    454 

The  large  incomes  to  many  of  the  clergy 456 

The  most  brazen  faced  receives  the  largest          ....     456 
The  uprising  against  the  clergy  upon  the  expiration  of  the  in- 
spection act 457 

Contention  that  Vestries  were  entitled  to  the  Eight  of  appointing 

Ministers 458 

Contention  that  the  Law  which  was  the  Foundation  of  the  Church 

was  null  and  void 458 

Conditions  with  Kespect  to  the  Church  favorable  to  the  Rise  of 

Popular  Government 459 


CHAPTER  VHT 

Relations  with  the  Home  Government 

The  Lord  Proprietor's  Position  between  the  People  of  his  Province 

and  the  Home  Government 460 

The  Quarrel  with  his  Majesty's  Collector  of  Customs  .  .  .  462 
The  Lord  Proprietor's  Government  is  taken  from  him  .  .  .  463 
After  the  Representative  Body  has  acquired  much  Power  it  is 

restored 464 

Controversy  with  Respect  to  the  Appointment  of  an  Agent  : 

Under  the  royal  government  an  agent  is  appointed  by  both 

houses    .  465 

After  the  restoration  of  the  proprietary  government  the  lower 

house  demands  the  sole  right  of  appointing  an  agent     .         .     467 
The  threat  of  the  lower  house  to  ask  the  crown  for  an  order  to 

direct  the  passage  of  the  agency  bill 470 

The  appointment  of  an  agent  paid  with  money  raised  by  sub- 
scription  471 

The  agent's  representation  of  the  proprietary  government  in  an 
unfavorable  light 471 


XX  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The  alarming  situation  causes  the  lord  proprietor  to  make  con- 
cessions    471 

During  the  fourth  intercolonial  war  the  agency  question  again 

comes  to  the  front  , 472 

Grievances  against  the  home  government  become  greater  than 

those  against  the  lord  proprietor 474 

The  People  vs.  the  Home  Government  previous  to  the  Passage  of 

the  Stamp  Act 475 

The  Stamp  Act : 

Treatment  of  the  stamp  distributer 477 

Procedure  of  the  lower  house 478 

Stamped  paper 483 

The  course  taken  by  the  court  of  Frederick  County    .         .         .  484 

The  Sons  of  Liberty  and  the  opening  of  offices  and  other  courts  485 

Daniel  Dulany  and  the  repeal 486 

The  Townshend  Acts  and  the  Lower  House 488 

The  Non-importation  Association 491 

The  Boston  Port  Bill,  Regulation  Act,  and,  the  Maryland  Convention  493 

Burning  of.  Tea 495 

The  Provisional  Government 498 

Attachment  to  the  Old  Constitution 500 

The  Declaration  of  Independence 501 

The  Proprietary  Government  ceases  to  exist 502 

Conclusion 502 

Appendix 507 

Bibliography 521 

Index 525 


MARYLAND 

AS  A  PROPRIETARY  PROVINCE 


INTRODUCTION 

Long  before  the  English  made  their  earliest  attempts 
to  found  colonies  on  the  American  continent,  the  right 
to  the  newly  discovered  regions  of  the  globe  had  been 
divided  by  papal  bulls  between  Spain  and  Portugal.  Later, 
in  the  year  1580,  Portugal,  with  all  her  possessions,  was 
brought  under  the  dominion  of  Philip  II  of  Spain.  This 
same  Spanish  king  was  at  that  time  the  head  of  the  chief 
branch  of  the  House  of  Hapsburg,  which  by  a  series  of 
marriages  had  for  some  time  been  threatening  to  bring 
all  Europe  under  its  rule.  Henry  VII  had  tied  England 
to  Spain  by  the  marriage  bond.  His  son,  Henry  VIII, 
however,  not  only  severed  that  bond,  but  also  caused 
Parliament  to  declare  the  Church  of  England  independent 
of  the  pope. 

From  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  daughter 
of  Henry  VIII,  the  relations  between  England  and  Spain 
became  more  and  more  hostile  ;  and  while  by  papal  bulls 
England  and  her  merchants  were  denied  the  right  of  trad- 
ing in  the  western  seas,  "silver"  ships  were  unloading  in 
Spanish  ports  the  treasure  taken  by  conquest  and  plunder 
from  Mexico  and  Peru.  It  was  under  such  conditions 
that  the  queen  of  England,  first,  silently  approved  of  the 
piratical  voyages  of  her  most  daring  sea  rovers,  and,  later, 
on  the  eve  of  war,  commissioned  a  fleet  under  Sir  Francis 
Drake  to  do  all  possible  damage  to  the  Spanish  marine. 
It  was  under  such  conditions,  also,  that  the  queen,  in 

B  1 


2  -     INTRODUCTION 

the  year  1578,  issued  to  Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert  her  first 
patent  for  colonization. 

By  this  patent  Gilbert  was  to  become  owner  of  all  terri- 
tory— not  already  possessed  by  a  Christian  prince  in  amity 
with  England  —  which  lay  within  two  hundred  leagues 
of  any  colony  that,  within  the  period  of  six  years,  he  might 
plant,  reserving  to  the  crown  but  one-fifth  part  of  all  the 
gold  and  silver  ore.  With  the  ownership  of  the  territory, 
Gilbert,  his  heirs  and  assigns,  should  enjoy  the  right  of 
governing  the  colony  by  means  of  such  laws  and  ordi- 
nances as  he  or  they  might  make,  provided  these  were  not 
contrary  to  the  laws  of  the  mother  country.  After  the 
lapse  of  six  years  without  the  founding  of  a  colony,  a  like 
patent  was  issued  to  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  a  man  strongly 
bent  on  the  destruction  of  the  Spanish  power.  He,  how- 
ever, accomplished  no  more  than  the  planting  of  an  ephem- 
eral colony  on  Roanoke  Island. 

But  in  the  year  1588,  two  years  before  the  expiration 
of  Raleigh's  patent,  the  great  Spanish  Armada  was  de- 
feated by  the  English.  After  that  event  the  Spanish 
power  on  the  sea  was  so  crippled  that  a  considerable  body 
of  English  merchants  began  to  take  the  active  interest 
in  trade  with  the  New  World,  which  had  hitherto  been 
largely  confined  to  the  sea  rover.  Corporations  were 
formed  for  planting  colonies  with  the  expectation  that 
the  returns  in  fish  and  peltries,  if  not  in  the  precious 
metals,  would  make  the  undertaking  a  profitable  one. 
As  a  result  of  this  movement,  a  colony  was  soon  founded 
in  Virginia ;  and,  later,  others  were  founded  in  New 
England.  But  as  neither  gold  nor  silver  was  found,  and 
as  the  profits  of  trade  in  fish  and  peltries  were  disappoint- 
ing, the  colony  in  Virginia  was  not  prosperous ;  and  the 
prosperity  of  those  in  New  England  was  due  not  to  the 
people  who  were  seeking  merely  the  profits  of  trade,  but 


INTRODUCTION  3 

to  the  people  who  were  seeking  a  new  home  as  a  refuge 
from  religious  oppression.  The  consequence  was  that  the 
chief  interest  in  the  New  World  centred  not  in  trade,  but 
in  ownership  of  land. 

While  the  English  had  been  accustomed  to  the  corpora- 
tion as  an  instrument  for  carrying  on  trade,  the  same  peo- 
ple, as  well  as  those  on  the  Continent,  had  for  a  long  time 
been  familiar  with  the  tenure  of  land  by  large  proprie- 
tors and  their  subtenants.  |  Moreover,  in  a  few  instances, 
where  border  defence  had  been  especially  necessary  to  one 
who  had  performed  some  marked  service  for  his  sover- 
eign not  only  had  the  ownership  of  the  land  of  an  entire 
border  county  been  awarded,  but  also  an  unusually  large 
degree  of  independence  in  the  government  of  that  county. 
Therefore,  when  Queen  Elizabeth  and  her  ministers  saw 
the  possibility  of  extending  her  claims  across  the  Atlantic, 
and  of  gaining  a  foothold  there  against  the  Spaniard,  it 
was  only  natural  that  in  the  patent,  first  to  Gilbert,  and 
then  to  Raleigh,  provision,  though  only  in  germ,  should 
be  made  for  the  development  of  a  similar  institution. 

The  overwhelming  defeat  of  the  Armada,  and  the  ab- 
sorbing attention  which  immediately  after  was  devoted 
to  trade,  caused  the  idea  of  reproducing  that  border  in- 
stitution to  lie  dormant  for  a  time.  But  when  trade  had 
yielded  disappointment,  when  massacres  by  a  new  enemy, 
the  Indian,  had  created  new  fear,  and  when  it  must  have 
been  felt  that  wealth  was  to  be  had  from  the  New  World 
mainly  through  extracting  it  from  the  soil  by  cultivation 
and  improvement,  that  institution  was  revived  under 
Elizabeth's  successor,  James  I,  with  much  more  complete- 
ness of  outline  than  appears  in  the  patents  of  Gilbert  and 
Raleigh,  and  successfully  transplanted  in  the  New  World 
in  the  form  of  the  proprietary  province. 

However,  before  such  a  province  had  been  successfully 


4  INTRODUCTION 

founded,  a  third  form  of  government  had  been  brought 
into  existence  among  the  English  colonies  of  the  New 
World,  namely,  that  of  the  royal  province.  While  the 
corporate  colony  was  originally  founded  in  the  interest  of 
trade,  while  the  proprietary  province  was  more  in  accord 
with  the  English  system  of  land  tenure  and  had  been  con- 
sidered advantageous  as  a  means  of  defence,  the  royal 
province  more  naturally  met  the  demands  for  greater 
unity  and  more  system  and  strength  in  the  government 
of  what  soon  became  the  British  Empire.  Consequently, 
with  the  growth  of  the  colonies,  in  the  interest  of  such 
unity,  system,  and  strength  both  the  proprietary  province 
and  the  corporate  colony  were  all  the  more  liable,  upon 
a  real  or  a  pretended  violation  of  the  terms  of  the  grant, 
to  be  made  royal  provinces. 

But  while  on  the  one  hand  there  was  the  inclination  of 
the  mother  country  to  reduce  all  other  forms  of  govern- 
ment in  her  colonies  to  that  of  the  royal  province,  on  the 
other  hand  the  colonists  struggled  to  bring  the  government 
over  them  more  and  more  under  their  own  control.  This 
struggle  took  one  form  in  the  corporate  colony,  another 
in  the  royal  province,  and  still  another  in  the  proprietary 
province.  In  the  case  of  the  corporate  colony,  the  seat  of 
government  was  soon  removed  from  the  mother  country 
to  the  colony;  this  weakened  the  control  of  the  crown, 
the  colonists  then  became  members  of  the  corporation, 
and  a  commonwealth  was  thereby  established.  In  the 
case  of  the  royal  province  there  was  usually  a  long  and 
vehement  contest  between  the  governor,  who  was  ap- 
pointed by  the  crown,  and  the  popular  branch  of  the 
legislature,  during  which  the  latter  gradually  encroached 
upon  the  powers  of  the  former.  In  the  case  of  the  pro- 
prietary province,  the  form  and  the  results  of  that  struggle 
may  best   be   seen   from  a  study  of  the  government  of 


INTRODUCTION  5 

Maryland  during  her  entire  proprietary  period.  This 
much,  however,  may  be  affirmed  at  the  outset,  namely, 
that  the  charter  of  no  other  English  province  provided, 
from  one  aspect  at  least,  for  such  a  strong  and  absolute 
form  of  monarchical  government  as  did  that  of  Maryland ; 
and  yet  when  the  Revolution  of  1776  put  an  end  to  the 
colonial  era,  the  people  of  Maryland  were  more  strongly 
attached  to  their  old  form  of  government  than  were  those 
of  any  other  of  the  thirteen  colonies. 

In  the  year  1603  a  monarch  ascended  the  throne  of 
England  who  had  unusually  high  notions  concerning  the 
divine  right  of  kings,  and  who,  accordingly,  made  enor- 
mous pretensions  relating  to  his  prerogative.  He  quar- 
relled most  obstinately  with  his  first  three  Parliaments, 
and  for  more  than  ten  years  of  his  reign  ruled  with  little 
aid  from  that  body.  The  practice  of  selling  monopolies 
and  patents  of  nobility,  which  had  become  a  grievance  in 
former  reigns,  he  continued  in  the  face  of  increasing  pro- 
tests. It  was  this  very  monarch,  King  James  I,  who,  in 
the  year  1623,  granted  by  charter  the  province  of  Avalon, 
in  Newfoundland,  to  one  of  his  principal  secretaries  of 
state,  George  Calvert.  The  soil  and  climate  of  Avalon 
proved  to  be  unsuitable  for  the  planting  of  a  colony. 
James  I  was  succeeded  in  the  year  1625  by  his  son, 
Charles  I.  After  Charles  had,  within  four  years  of  his 
accession,  angrily  dissolved  his  third  Parliament  and 
entered  upon  his  eleven  years  of  absolute  rule  with- 
out even  one  session  of  that  body,  George  Calvert,  who 
in  the  meantime  had  been  created  Lord  Baltimore,  was 
about  to  secure  the  royal  grant  of  the  province  of  Mary- 
land by  a  charter  which  was  a  copy  of  that  of  Avalon. 
George  Calvert  died  in  April,  1632,  before  the  charter 
had  passed  the  great  seal ;  but,  bearing  the  date  of  June 
twentieth  of  the  same  year,  it  was  issued  to  his  eldest 


6  INTRODUCTION 

son,  Cecilius.  The  charter,  which  was  the  constitutional 
basis  of  the  proprietary  government  of  Maryland,  was, 
therefore,  brought  into  existence  in  an  atmosphere  of 
absolutism. 

As  already  in  part  indicated,  the  original  model  on 
which  this  charter  was  drawn  was  that  of  the  border 
county  of  Durham  —  known  as  a  county  palatine  — 
which,  in  its  turn,  was,  in  most  essentials,  a  reproduction 
by  William  the  Norman  of  the  mark  created  by  Charle- 
magne in  the  frontier  districts  of  his  empire  for  the  pur- 
pose of  defence.  Again,  the  county  palatine,  of  which 
Durham,  in  the  year  1623,  was  yet  a  strong  type,  was  a 
great  crown  fief,  the  powers  of  whose  lord  were  regal  in 
kind,  and  inferior  only  in  degree  to  those  of  the  king.1 
The  Maryland  charter  was  therefore  based  upon  an  insti- 
tution which  was  a  kingdom  within  a  kingdom.  For  so 
long  a  time  as  a  monarch  of  the  Stuart  type  sat  upon  the 
English  throne,  it  conferred  upon  the  grantee,  the  lord 
proprietor,  both  royal  rights  over  the  territory  and  monar- 
chical powers  of  government.  "It  conferred  on  the 
grantee,"  says  an  able  writer,  "  probably  the  most  exten- 
sive political  privileges  ever  enjoyed  by  an  English  subject 
since  the  great  houses  had  bowed  before  the  successive 
oppression  of  Yorkist  and  Tudor  rule."2 

Before  1623  the  head  of  the  palatinate  of  Durham,  who 
was  always  a  bishop,  had  been  shorn  of  some  of  his  power  ; 
but  notwithstanding  this,  the  lord  proprietor  of  the  new 
American  palatinate  was  to  have  "  as  ample  rights,  liber- 
ties, immunities,  and  temporal  franchises,  whatsoever,  as 
well  by  sea  as  by  land,  as  any  bishop  of  Durham  had  ever 

1  Lapsley,  "  County  Palatine  of  Durham  "  ;  Osgood,  "The  Proprietary 
Province  as  a  Form  of  Colonial  Government." 

2 Doyle,  "English  Colonies  in  America:  Virginia,  Maryland,  and  the 
Carolinas,"  p.  281. 


INTRODUCTION 


rp 


had,  exercised,  used,  and  enjoyed,  or  ever  had  a  right  to 
hold,  use,  or  enjoy."1 

His  rights  were  both  territorial  and  governmental.  He 
was  made  the  absolute  lord  and  proprietor  of  the  province 
which  he  was  to  hold  in  free  and  common  socage,  and  pay 
to  the-  crown  a  nominal  annual  rent  of  two  Indian  arrows 
and  one-fifth  part  of  all  the  gold  and  silver  ore.  His 
province  was  made  both  alienable  and  inheritable.  The 
execution  of  the  statute  of  quia  emptores  within  the  prov- 
ince having  been  suspended,  he  was  to  enjoy  the  right  of 
subinfeudation  ;  that  is,  he  was  given  the  right  to  grant 
or  lease  any  portion  of  his  territory  to  any  person  who 
should  hold  the  same  of  him  —  and  not  of  the  king  —  in 
fee  simple  or  fee  tail.  He  was  given  the  privilege  of  erect- 
ing manors  with  courts  baron  and  courts  leet,  and  also  of 
erecting  ports  and  harbors  wherein  the  taxes  and  subsidies 
imposed  were  to  be  reserved  to  him. 

He  was  given  all  power  necessary  to  ordain,  make,  and 
enact  laws  with  the  advice  and  assent  of  the  freemen  or 
their  deputies,  whom,  in  whatever  manner  should  seem 
best  to  him,  he  might  call  together  as  often  as  need  should 
require.  Laws  thus  passed  were  to  be  published  under  his 
seal,  and  executed  by  him  on  all  the  inhabitants  of  the 
province  by  the  imposition,  when  necessary,  of  fines  and 
punishments,  even  to  the  taking  of  life  or  limb.  He  was 
authorized  to  appoint  all  officers  necessary  for  the  execu- 
tion of  the  law,  and  to  delegate  to  them  such  powers  as 
he  saw  fit.  Whenever  there  was  not  time,  or  whenever, 
owing  to  some  emergencjv  it  did  not  seem  expedient  to 
call  the  deputies  together,  he  might  issue  ordinances  for 
the  preservation  of  the  peace  or  for  the  better  government 
of  the  people.  He  was  authorized  to  establish  courts, 
appoint   judges,  try  all  manner  of   cases,  both  civil  and 

1 1       Appendix. 


8  INTRODUCTION 

criminal,  and  render  and  execute  judgment.  He  was 
granted  the  full  power  of  a  captain  general,  with  license 
to  wage  defensive  war,  to  exercise  martial  law  for  the 
suppression  of  rebellion,  to  build  and  fortify  castles  and 
forts,  and  to  direct  all  minor  affairs  of  a  military  nature. 
He  was  authorized  to  confer  titles  and  honors.  He  was  em- 
powered to  erect  and  incorporate  towns  into  boroughs,  and 
boroughs  into  cities.  He  was  to  have  the  right  of  patron- 
age and  the  advowsons  of  churches,  and  the  license  to 
erect,  found,  dedicate,  and  consecrate  churches  and  chapels. 

The  lord  proprietor  of  Maryland  was,  therefore,  made 
the  grantee  of  the  territory  with  almost  unrestricted  privi- 
leges as  to  the  use  he  might  make  of  it ;  he  was  made  the 
fountain  of  all  office,  title,  and  honor  ;  he  was  placed  at 
the  head  of  the  church;  he  was  made  the  centre  and 
immediate  source  of  all  military,  executive,  and  judicial 
authority  ;  and  there  was  some  ground  for  his  claiming 
the  right  to  be  the  originator  and  controller  of  all  legis- 
lative activity. 

Although  the  English  crown  reserved  to  itself  the  right 
of  control  in  war,  trade,  and  commerce,  yet  that  crown 
was  forever  to  refrain  from  taxing,  by  itself  or  through  its 
courts  or  other  agents,  the  person  of  any  inhabitant  of 
Maryland  or  any  property  therein. 

But  even  as  King  James  I  was  told  by  his  Parliament 
that  there  could  be  no  king  without  a  people,  so  the  charter 
which  gave  such  extensive  powers  to  the  lord  proprietor 
of  Maryland  could  have  availed  that  proprietor  little  had 
there  not  been  a  provision  so  guaranteeing  rights  and 
liberties  as  to  induce  people  to  become  inhabitants  of  the 
new  province.  Accordingly,  side  by  side  with  the  grants 
to  the  lord  proprietor,  the  charter  provided  that  there 
should  be  no  ordinance  which  could  take  away  the  right 
or  interest  of  any  person  or  persons,  of,  or  in  member, 


INTRODUCTION  9 

life,  freehold,  goods,  or  chattels  ;  that  all  laws  and  ordi- 
nances should  be  reasonable  and,  so  far  as  convenient,  like 
the  laws  and  customs  of  England  ;  and  —  what  was  espe- 
cially comprehensive  and  proved  to  be  far-reaching  in  its 
consequences  —  that  the  people  of  Maryland  should  be 
entitled  to  "  all  the  privileges,  franchises,  and  liberties " 
which  other  English  subjects  enjoyed. 

Finally,  therefore,  granted  during  the  reign  of  a  king 
who,  under  the  guidance  of  his  theory  of  divine  right,  was 
ruling  independently  of  Parliament,  and  its  framer  looking 
back,  for  a  model,  to  an  English  institution  established  by 
so  absolute  a  monarch  as  William  the  Norman  when  feu- 
dalism was  yet  in  its  prime,  and  when  the  modern  legis- 
lative Assembly  was  yet  only  in  germ,  the  charter  of 
Maryland  with  its  long  enumeration  of  sovereign  rights 
bestowed  on  the  lord  proprietor  seemed,  indeed,  to  make 
him  quite  as  absolute  within  his  dominion  as  was  the 
English  king  within  his  realm  of  Britain  ;  on  the  other 
hand,  those  three  briefly  expressed  provisions,  by  which 
the  rights  and  liberties  of  the  people  were  to  be  secured, 
—  when  turned  \o  look  both  backward  to  Magna  Carta 
and  forward  to  the  English  Bill  of  Rights  and  beyond,  — 
were  destined  clearly  to  contradict  many  of  the  other  most 
important  provisions  of  the  charter,  and,  as  they  were  en- 
forced, the  power,  the  control  of  the  people  waxed,  while 
that  of  the  lord  proprietor  diminished  until  the  former 
became  supreme  even  while  the  government  continued  on 
the  charter  basis.  And  so  the  excellence  of  the  charter 
lay  in  the  fact  that,  although  primarily  designed  to  foster 
a  strong  centralized  government,  it  proved  to  be  in  a  high 
degree  elastic.  Thereby  it  made  possible  the  much 
needed  control  of  the  well-trained  and  able  administra- 
tor during  the  early,  the  dangerous,  and  the  critical  years 
of  the  colony,  while  in  later  years  it  proved  to  contain 


10  INTRODUCTION 

ample  provision  to  admit  of  a  sufficiently  rapid  rise  of 
democratic,  or  rather  aristocratic,  tendencies. 

In  the  development  of  the  form  of  government  provided 
by  the  charter,  the  forces  making  for  popular  self-govern- 
ment were  stronger  and  less  impeded  in  Maryland  than 
were  similar  forces  in  the  mother  country.  When  con- 
fronted by  the  conditions  in  the  New  World,  former 
customs  were  more  quickly  outgrown  and  set  aside.  Dis- 
tance weakened  the  spirit  of  awe  or  reverence  for  the 
crowned,  anointed,  and  consecrated  monarch.  The  sparse- 
ness  of  the  population,  which  kept  low  the  value  of  land, 
the  absence  of  continuous  and  necessary  demands  for 
the  forces  of  war,  and,  especially,  the  abandonment  of 
primogeniture  as  a  rule  governing  the  descent  of  land, 
were  unfavorable  to  the  growth  of  a  new  nobility.  Then, 
too,  among  the  most  wealthy  and  influential  of  the  people 
of  the  province  were  many  with  whom  a  leading  motive 
for  leaving  the  Old  World  was  that  they  might  enjoy 
greater  political  and  religious  liberty.  A  yet  larger  num- 
ber among  all  ranks  were  attracted  thither  by  the  easy  and 
favorable  terms  on  which  land  was  offered.  Of  these  a 
numerous  faction  was  composed  of  those  restless,  turbu- 
lent, thriftless  adventurers  who  are  ever  thronging  the 
frontiers.  Unable  to  gain  an  honest  livelihood  in  the  Old 
World,  they  were  perhaps  even  less  able  to  do  so  in  the 
New.  They  were  wanting  in  moderation,  incapable  of 
governing  themselves,  and  not  disposed  to  content  them- 
selves under  the  government  of  another.  Although  they 
were  usually  held  in  subjection  in  Maryland,  yet  there 
were  occasions  on  which  concessions  were  made  to  them  in 
order  to  prevent  an  uprising. 

During  the  seventeenth  century  the  great  sparseness  of 
the  population,  the  absence  of  towns,  and  hence  the  very 
limited  social  intercourse  retarded  the  growth  of  political 


INTRODUCTION  11 

life.  Had  the  province  been  left  to  itself,  the  low  social 
pressure,  and  the  consequent  want  of  a  political  awaken- 
ing would,  during  that  century,  have  prevented  more  than 
a  weak  opposition  to  the  claims  of  the  lord  proprietor  ; 
but,  even  from  the  very  beginning,  what  was  wanting  in 
the  social  and  political  conditions  was,  in  effect,  in  no 
small  measure  furnished  by  disturbances  originating  in 
external  sources  or  conditions. 

The  earliest  of  such  disturbances  was  a  continuance  of 
trouble  that  arose  even  before  the  charter  was  granted. 
It  was  early  in  October,  1629,  that  the  first  Lord  Baltimore 
arrived  in  Virginia  to  make  choice  of  land  with  a  view 
of  obtaining  another  grant  from  the  crown.  Upon  this 
very  first  occasion,  regardless  of  the  facts  that  he  had  but 
a  few  years  before  resigned  with  honor  so  high  an  office  as 
that  of  secretary  of  state,  and  that  he  had  been  a  member 
of  the  provisional  council  for  the  government  of  Virginia, 
he  was  received  with  coldness  and  the  spirit  of  contempt  by 
the  governor  and  council  of  the  province.  .  Suchlreatrnent , 
W^s  provoked  both  by  Lord  Baltimore's  Catholic  faith  and 
J)ythe  unwillingness  of  the  Virginians  to  have  a  new  proy^.,. 
_inp.fi  p.fl.rvftfl  nnf.  nf  t^p  tPT-rifnry  which  under  the  charter  of 
1  fiOQj-uurhp.pn  a  parf  nf  thftjjnmajn  of  the  London  Company^ 
As  if,  therefore,  with  the  hope  of  driving  away  this  unwel- 
come intruder,  the  governor  and  council,  with  no  authority 
for  so  doing,  tendered  to  him  the  oath  of  supremacy  and 
allegiance.1  But  Lord  Baltimore  was  not  one  of  those  men 
that  could  be  so  easily  turned  from  his  purpose.  After  the 
object  of  his  visit  had  been  accomplished,  he  returned  to 
England  ;  and  although,  owing  to  continued  opposition 
from  the  Virginians,  he  did  not  obtain  a  grant  of  the  land 
lying  south  of  the  James  River,  —  his  first  choice,  —  after 

1  Maryland  Archives,  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1636  to  1667,  pp. 
16,  17. 


12  ■'  INTRODUCTION 

a  lapse  of  over  two  years  there  was  granted  to  his  son, 
Cecilius,  by  the  charter  of  Maryland,  the  land  lying  north 
of  the  Potomac,  —  his  second  choice. 

Yet  within  a  few  months  after  Cecilius  Calvert,  the 
second  Lord  Baltimore,  had  obtained  the  charter,  the 
crown  was  presented  with  a  petition  against  it  from 
the  governor,  council,  and  planters  of  Virginia.  The 
petitioners  complained  that  by  the  new  grant  they  were 
cut  off  from  some  of  their  places  of  trade.  They  con- 
tended that  contrary  to  the  supposition  on  which  the  grant 
had  been  made,  part  of  the  land  had  been  inhabited  by 
Virginians.  They  pretended  that  the  grant  of  the  charter 
of  Maryland  was  a  violation  of  the  charter  granted  to  the 
London  Company  in  the  year  1609,  on  the  ground  that 
the  territory  of  the  newly  erected  province  was  within  the 
limits  of  what  had  been  granted  by  that  company's  charter. 
But  that  charter  had  been  resumed  by  the  crown  in  the 
year  1624,  ever  since  which  Virginia  had  been  a  royal 
province  ;  and  in  support  of  their  claim  that  a  part  of 
Maryland  had  been  inhabited  by  Virginians  nothing  has 
been  found  except  that  Henry  Fleet  had  been  trading 
with  the  Indians,  and  William  Claiborne  was  about  this 
time  establishing  a  trading  post  on  Kent  Island.  There- 
fore, as  there  was  so  little  ground  for  the  petition,  after 
it  had  received  a  formal  hearing  by  the  privy  council,  it 
was  not  only  decided  that  the  charter  of  Maryland  should 
stand,  but  the  governor  and  council  of  Virginia  were 
given  a  royal  order  to  treat  Lord  Baltimore  with  the 
courtesy  and  respect  that  were  due  to  a  person  of  his  rank, 
and  also  to  give  the  colonists  of  Maryland  such  lawful 
assistance  as  might  conduce  to  the  safety  and  advantage 
of  both  Maryland  and  Virginia.1 

i  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1636  to  1667,  pp.  18-22  ;  Sainsbury,  Cal- 
endar of  State  Papers,  1574  to  1660. 


iUNh  Y )) 

INTRODUCTION  \^^y^^/^ 

But  notwithstanding  this  order,  serious  trouble  from 
Virginia  still  awaited  Lord  Baltimore  and  his  officers. 
Among  those  Virginians  who  followed  the  first  Lord 
Baltimore  to  England  in  order  to  prevent,  if  possible,  his 
obtaining  the  charter  for  which  he  was  seeking  was  Will- 
iam Claiborne,  a  member  of  the  council  and  secretary  of 
state  for  Virginia.  This  man  was  one  of  those  who  had 
tendered  the  oaths  to  Lord  Baltimore.  He  was  a  younger 
son  of  an  ancient  English  family,  and  in  the  year  1621, 
after  having  been  commissioned  surveyor  for  the  Virginia 
colony,  had  sailed  thither  to  make  his  fortune.  Since  his 
arrival  he  had  prospered  and  proved  himself  to  be  a 
man  of  marked  ability.  In  the  year  1627  and,  again, 
in  1628  he  had  been  granted  the  governor's  license  to 
make  an  expedition  into  the  Chesapeake  Bay  and  other 
parts  of  Virginia  for  the  purpose  of  exploration  and  trade 
with  the  Indians.  In  the  year  1629  he  had  been  made  a 
captain  and  put  in  command  of  an  expedition  that  was 
sent  against  the  Indians  for  the  purpose  of  punishing  them 
for  hostilities  recently  committed.1 

One  year  later  he  was  in  England  opposing  Lord  Balti- 
more ;  and  while  there  he  first  induced  a  firm  of  London 
merchants,  Cloberry  and  Company,  to  engage  him  as  their 
■agent,  or  special  partner,  to  carry  on  a  trade  for  furs  with 
the  Indians  to  the  north  of  Virginia.  Then  in  May,  1631, 
he  obtained  from  King  Charles  a  license  for  himself  and 
his  colony  to  trade  with  Nova  Scotia  and  New  England  ; 
and  less  than  a  year  later  he  was  given  permission  to 
trade  with  the  Dutch  plantations  at  Manhattan,  by  a 
license  which  was  granted  him  by  the  Governor  of  Vir- 
ginia. 

After  such  extensive  plans  had  been  formed  and  the 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1636  to  1667,  pp.  24-39  ;  Browne,  "  Mary- 
land, the  History  of  a  Palatinate,"  Ch.  III. 


14  INTRODUCTION 

required  license  had  been  obtained,  the  next  step  was  to 
establish  a  trading-post  at  some  convenient  place.  Accord- 
ingly, an  island  in  the  Chesapeake  Bay,  near  the  mouth  of 
the  Severn,  was  chosen  for  this  purpose  and  named  Kent. 
Friendly  negotiations  for  the  possession  of  the  island  hav- 
ing been  made  with  the  Indians,  the  necessary  buildings 
were  erected  and  a  number  of  men  stationed  therein.1 

But  on  this  occasion,  from  the  very  beginning,  Clai- 
borne's business  did  not  prosper.  First,  disagreements 
arose  between  him  and  his  company  —  the  merchants 
complaining  of  the  small  quantities  of  peltry  which  they 
received,  and  Claiborne  complaining  both  as  to  the  quan- 
tity and  the  quality  of  the  wares  which  the  merchants 
sent  out  for  the  trade.  At  one  time  the  London  supplies 
were  stopped  for  more  than  a  year,  and  as  Claiborne  did 
not  himself  reside  on  the  island,  the  men  at  the  post 
were  nearly  starved  and  for  a  few  years  in  constant  dread 
of  being  cut  off  by  the  Indians. 

Such  was  their  condition  when,  in  the  year  1633-34, 
the  first  Maryland  colonists,  under  command  of  Governor 
Calvert,  the  lord  proprietor's  brother,  arrived  within  the 
province.  Shortly  before  their  arrival,  Claiborne  had 
been  told  that  Kent  Island  was  within  the  province  of 
Maryland,  and  that  the  men  at  his  trading-post  must  there- 
fore relinquish  all  dependence  on  the  government  of  Vir- 
ginia. But  as  Claiborne  had  been  the  active  opponent 
of  the  lord  proprietor,  as  he  was  still  a  member  of  the 
council  of  Virginia,  as  the  freemen  at  his  post  had  been 
allowed  one  member  in  the  Virginia  house  of  burgesses, 
and  as  the  reply  to  the  petition  of  the  Virginians  against 
the  Maryland  charter  had  not  yet  been  received,  he  was 
by  no  means  ready  to  comply  with  the  demand. 

1  It  is  probable  that  Claiborne  had  thus  taken  possession  of  the  island 
ten  months  before  the  Maryland  charter  had  passed  the  great  seal. 


INTRODUCTION  15 

About  the  time  the  Ark  and  the  Dove,  the  vessels  bear- 
ing Governor  Calvert  and  his  party,  entered  the  Chesa- 
peake, he  laid  the  matter  before  the  governor  and  council 
of  Virginia  for  direction  ;  and  in  the  reply,  given  March  14, 
1633-34,  he  was  told  that  there  was  no  more  reason  for 
giving  up  that  island  than  there  was  for  giving  up  any 
other  part  of  Virginia.1 

For  a  time  the  peace  was  not  disturbed.  For  a  month 
or  two  after  the  landing  of  the  Maryland  colonists  the  rela- 
tions between  them  and  the  Indians  were  most  friendly. 
But,  although  the  answer  to  the  petition  of  the  Vir- 
ginians had  by  that  time  been  received,  there  then  ap- 
peared a  change  on  the  part  of  the  Indians ;  and  while 
seeking  the  cause  of  this,  Claiborne  was  accused  by  the 
Indian  interpreter  of  having  told  the  natives  that  the  men 
of  the  new  colony  were  Spaniards  and  enemies  of  the 
English.2  Later,  on  the  testimony  of  the  Indians,  there 
seemed  to  be  some  ground  for  believing  this  accusation 
to  have  been  false.  But  such  ground  did  not  appear  until 
after  an  account  of  that  accusation  had  been  given  to  the 
lord  proprietor.  As  a  consequence,  the  lord  proprietor 
issued  an  instruction  which  directed  that  if  Claiborne 
still  refused  to  submit  and  the  Maryland  force  was  thought 
to  be  strong  enough,  he  and  his  settlement  on  Kent  Island 
should  be  taken  and  he  be  kept  a  prisoner  until  further 
orders  concerning  him.3 

This  instruction  bears  the  date  of  September  4,  1634. 
Very  soon  after  it  had  been  received  by  Governor  Calvert, 
it  must  have  been  acted  upon.  For  only  a  few  months 
later  a  Maryland  force  captured  a  pinnace  belonging  to 
Claiborne   and   his   company  because   it  was  trading  in 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1667  to  1687-88,  p.  164. 

2  Ibid.,  pp.  165, 166,  167. 
8  Ibid.,  p.  168. 


16  INTRODUCTION 

Maryland  waters  without  a  license  from  the  Maryland 
government.  Although  the  capture  was  a  just  and  law- 
ful one,  and  gave  Claiborne  no  ground  for  action,  he,  in 
order  to  make  reprisal,  armed  a  shallop  and  manned  it 
with  about  thirty  men  under  the  command  of  Lieutenant 
Ratcliffe  Warren,  whom  he  commissioned  to  seize  any 
vessels  belonging  to  the  Maryland  government.  That 
government,  upon  hearing  of  this,  armed  and  equipped 
two  pinnaces  and  sent  them  out  under  command  of  Cap- 
tain Thomas  Cornwallis.  The  two  hostile  forces  met 
April  23,  1635,  in  the  most  southern  waters  of  Maryland. 
The  Claiborne  force  fired  first,  killing  one  man  and 
wounding  several.  In  returning  the  fire,  the  Maryland 
force  killed  the  enemy's  commander  and  two  others,  and 
thereby  caused  their  surrender.1  Another,  but  a  lesser, 
engagement  took  place  in  the  following  month,  after  which 
the  government  of  Virginia  took  action  in  the  matter. 
The  council  of  that  government  was  very  much  aroused 
and  embittered  against  the  government  of  Maryland ; 
but,  owing  to  the  above-mentioned  commands  from  King 
Charles,  it  could  do  scarcely  less  than  to  send  commis- 
sioners to  Maryland  for  the  purpose  of  restoring  peace. 
This  was  done,  a  temporary  peace  was  made,  and  there 
the  matter  rested  for  about  a  year  and  a  half. 

But  in  December,  1636,  there  arrived  on  the  island  a 
man  who  was  to  play  a  leading  part  in  bringing  about  the 
subjection  of  the  troublesome  islanders  to  the  govern- 
ment of  Maryland.2  This  man  was  George  Evelin,  whom 
Cloberry  and  Company  had  sent  out  as  their  attorney, 
authorized  to  take  charge  of  the  settlement,  and  directed 
to  request  Claiborne  to  come  to  England  for  the  purpose 
of   explaining  his   proceedings   and   adjusting   accounts. 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1667  to  1687-88,  pp.  169,  170. 

2  Streeter,  "The  First  Commander  of  Kent  Island." 


INTRODUCTION  17 

At  first  Evelin  denied  the  right  of  Maryland  to  have 
jurisdiction  over  the  island,  denied  that  Lord  Baltimore 
had  the  exclusive  right  of  trade  within  the  borders  of  his 
province,  and  cast  reflections  on  Governor  Calvert,  saying 
that  while  in  school  he  had  been  but  a  dunce  and  a  block- 
head. In  this  way  he  soon  won  the  confidence  of  the 
islanders  and  induced  Claiborne  to  deliver  to  him  the 
control  of  the  settlement.  But  before  departing  for  Eng- 
land, Claiborne  must  have  become  suspicious  of  Evelin's 
intentions.  For,  having  called  a  meeting  of  the  freemen 
and  servants,  he  tried  in  their  presence  to  obtain  from 
Evelin  a  £3000  bond  not  to  hand  over  the  island  to 
the  Marylanders. 

This  Evelin  refused  to  give ;  and  after  Claiborne's 
departure  and  his  own  adjustment  of  a  few  matters,  he 
began  to  study  the  Maryland  charter,  with  the  result 
that  he  decided  that  Kent  Island  could  not  stand  against 
the  government  of  Maryland.  He  obtained  from  Gov- 
ernor Calvert  a  commission  appointing  him  commander 
of  the  island,  and  then  tried  to  persuade  those  under  him 
to  give  their  willing  submission  to  the  government  of 
Maryland.  But  finding  himself  unable  to  accomplish 
his  end  by  such  means,  he  prevailed  upon  Governor  Cal- 
vert to  proceed  —  without  waiting  for  further  orders  from 
England  —  to  the  reduction  of  the  island  by  force.  Ac- 
cordingly, in  December,  1637,  about  forty  armed  men 
landed  on  the  island,  and,  the  surprise  being  complete, 
the  reduction  was  easy.  However,  Evelin  in  no  way  had 
the  interest  of  the  people  at  heart,  being  far  more  inter- 
ested in  obtaining  a  large  manor  as  the  reward  for  his 
services  ;  and  his  treatment  of  the  friends  of  Claiborne 
was  so  severe  that  they  would  not  endure  it,  but  rose  in 
rebellion  and  rescued  those  arrested  for  debt.  This  made 
necessary  a  second  reduction  of  the  island,  which  was  ac- 


A 


18  INTRODUCTION 

complished  by  a  force  under  Governor  Calvert.  A  little 
later  the  immediate  government  of  the  island  was  in- 
trusted to  other  hands  than  those  of  George  Evelin. 
Finally,  as  for  Claiborne,  while  he  was  still  absent  in 
England  the  general  assembly  passed  a  bill  of  attainder 
against  him,  in  which  his  possessions  in  the  province  were 
declared  forfeited  to  the  proprietor.1 

For  a  few  years  after  the  passing  of  that  bill  Claiborne 
gave  the  government  of  Maryland  no  serious  trouble. 
Nevertheless,  so  strong  and  persistent  was  his  spirit  of 
revenge  that  he  seems  to  have  been  determined  to  the 
end  of  his  days  to  lose  no  favorable  opportunity  for 
bringing  about  the  overthrow  of  that  government  ;  and 
in  that  very  session  of  assembly  in  which  he  was  attainted 
matters  began  to  shape  themselves  for  the  first  of  such 
opportunities.  For,  with  that  session,  Thomas  Cornwallis, 
who  had  been  the  leader  of  the  forces  sent  against  Clai- 
borne's men,  began  to  manifest  his  disaffection  toward  the 
lord  proprietor  and  the  governor.  Cornwallis  was  a  lead- 
ing member  of  the  council  of  state  ;  he  was  the  most  stal- 
wart military  commander  in  the  province  ;  and  at  one  time 
he  was  the  owner  of  nearly  twenty  thousand  acres  of  land. 
As  several  questions  of  prime  importance  came  before  the 
Assembly,  he  took  a  stand  in  favor  of  permitting  the  free- 
men to  exercise  larger  legislative  power  than  the  lord  pro- 
prietor or  the  governor  was  ready  to  allow.  Shortly  after 
the  prorogation  he  wrote  a  letter  to  the  lord  proprietor 
in  which  he  complained  that  the  transactions  of  the  As- 
sembly had  been  prejudicial  to  the  honor  and  freedom  of 
the  colonists,  that  sufficient  immunities  and  privileges 
had  not  been  guaranteed  to  the  church,  and  that  the  lord 
proprietor's  agreement  with  respect  to  freedom  of  trade 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1637-38  to  1664, 
pp.  23,  24. 


INTRODUCTION  19 

had  not  been  kept.  Finally  he  threatened  to  leave  the 
province  if  he  were  not  permitted  to  enjoy  what  had  been 
promised  before  his  departure  from  England.1 

A  little  later  came  on  the  war  in  the  mother  country 
between  the  king  and  the  Parliament.  It  could  hardly 
have  been  otherwise  than  that  such  a  war  should  alarm 
the  lord  proprietor  and  incite  such  Maryland  colonists  as 
Cornwallis,  his  followers,  and  others  sympathizing  with 
the  Parliament  to  more  vigorous  and  even  violent  action 
against  the  government.  By  the  year  1643  the  situation 
had  become  so  critical  that  Governor  Calvert  sailed  for 
England  in  order  to  confer  with  the  lord  proprietor. 

Cornwallis  did  not  retain  his  seat  in  the  council  during 
the  governor's  absence  ;  yet  Giles  Brent,  the  governor's 
substitute,  appointed  him  captain  general,  and  in  that 
capacity  he  concluded  a  peace  with  the  Nanticoke  Indians 
and  led  an  expedition  against  the  troublesome  Susque- 
hannas.  But  toward  the  close  of  the  year  in  which  he 
performed  these  services  there  arrived  from  London  a 
trader  —  Richard  Ingle  by  name  —  of  the  piratical  type. 
While  this  base  representative  of  a  worthy  cause  was 
loading  his  ship  in  the  port  at  St.  Mary's,  he  was  arrested 
on  the  charge  of  having  spoken  there  treasonable  words 
against  the  king.  Cornwallis  seems  to  have  thought  this 
a  fit  opportunity  for  striking  another  blow  in  behalf  of 
liberty  and  of  showing  his  affection  for  the  cause  of  Par- 
liament. Very  soon  after  Ingle's  arrest,  therefore,  he, 
with  one  of  the  council  and  one  or  two  others,  defied 
the  authorities,  first  by  causing  the  sheriff  to  release 
Ingle,  and  then  by  helping  him  to  get  safe  out  of  the 
port.  For  this  offence  Cornwallis  was  brought  to  trial 
and  fined  one  thousand  pounds  of  tobacco.2     Moreover,  the 

1  Calvert  Papers,  No.  1,  p.  172,  etseq. 

2  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1636  to  1667,  p.  167. 


20  INTRODUCTION 

feeling  against  him  was  so  strong  that  he  thought  best  to 
leave  the  province  and  very  soon  went  as  one  of  Ingle's 
passengers  to  England,  where,  in  trouble,  he  passed  the 
remainder  of  his  days. 

His  departure  greatly  diminished  the  military  strength 
of  the  colony.  The  Susquehannas  remained  hostile.  The 
government  was  weak,  Governor  Calvert  being  still  absent, 
and  the  people  were  divided  into  factions. 

With  affairs  in  this  condition  Claiborne  felt  that 
there  was  an  opportunity  for  him.  He  therefore  made 
secret  visits  to  Kent  Island  and  spared  no  means,  how- 
ever unscrupulous,  to  incite  a  rebellion.  For  a  time 
he  found  but  few  followers.  Governor  Calvert  re- 
turned to  Maryland  in  September,  sent  a  small  recon- 
noitring expedition  to  Kent  Island,  caused  action  to 
be  taken  for  securing  protection  from  the  Indians,  and 
sought  in  every  way  to  restore  strength  to  the  govern- 
ment.1 

But  before  he  had  made  much  headway  Ingle  also  returned 
from  England  with  a  body  of  armed  men  with  whose  aid 
he  easily  got  possession  of  the  seat  of  government.  That 
seizure  enabled  Claiborne  to  get  control  of  Kent  Island. 
For  nearly  two  years  the  insurrection  continued.  The 
lord  proprietor  was  doubtful  as  to  the  recovery  of  his 
province.  But  —  although  a  remnant  of  the  council 
elected  Hill,  a  Virginian,  governor  —  Ingle  did  not  at- 
tempt to  provide  the  province  with  any  government. 
He  cared  for  little  except  pillage  ;  and  in  that  he  and 
his  party  indulged  without  restraint.  It  was  only  natu- 
ral, therefore,  that  the  colonists  should  sooner  or  later 
feel  that  they  had  had  enough  of  him.  And  when  Gov- 
ernor Calvert,  who  had  gone  to  Virginia  for  assistance, 
returned  with  some   hired   soldiers   from   that   province 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1636  to  1667,  p.  161. 


INTRODUCTION  21 

and  others  from  Maryland,  he  easily  regained  possession 
first  of  St.  Mary's  and  later  of  Kent  Island. 

Yet  both  Claiborne  and  Ingle  escaped,  and  the  former 
had  not  long  to  wait  before  still  another  opportunity  was 
afforded  him  for  the  revenge  which  he  so  strongly  craved. 
At  the  outbreak  of  the  civil  war  in  England  the  lord  pro- 
prietor was  a  friend  of  the  king  ;  but  after  he  learned  of 
the  obstinacy  of  the  king  and  saw  the  course  affairs  were 
likely  to  take,  he  became  more  and  more  careful  not  to 
offend  the  Parliament.  Although  Governor  Calvert,  just 
before  his  death  in  June,  1647,  had  appointed  Thomas 
Greene,  a  Catholic,  as  his  successor,  the  lord  proprietor 
removed  Greene  and  intrusted  the  controlling  power  in 
the  government  of  his  province  to  such  Protestants  as 
were  victorious  in  the  mother  country.  It  is  true  that 
while  the  new  governor,  William  Stone,  was  absent  in 
Virginia,  Thomas  Greene,  whom  he  had  appointed  as  his 
substitute,  proclaimed  Charles  II  as  the  rightful  heir  to 
his  father's  dominions  ; 2  but  Stone  returned  soon  after, 
and  it  was  thought  no  harm  would  come  from  Greene's 
act.  The  first  occasion  of  the  trouble  in  which  Maryland 
was  so  soon  to  be  involved  arose,  not  out  of  that  act,  but 
from  the  attitude  which  the  Virginia  Assembly  had 
assumed. 

By  the  year  1642  a  Puritan  settlement  in  Virginia  had 
become  large  enough  for  Massachusetts  to  send  thither 
three  ministers  as  missionaries.2  About  the  time  of  their 
arrival,  the  Virginia  Assembly  passed  an  act  requiring  all 
ministers  to  conform  to  the  Church  of  England  and  direct- 
ing the  governor  and  council  to  compel  all  non-conform- 
ists,   upon    notice,    to    leave    the    province    "with    all 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1636  to  1667,  pp.  243,  244. 

2  Winthrop,  "History  of  New  England,"  Vol.  II,  pp.  78,  95  old  ed., 
or  93,  115  new  ed. 


22  INTRODUCTION 

conveniency."1  Five  years  later  two  of  the  leaders  were 
ordered  to  go,  and  others  followed.2  Surely,  in  this  gov- 
ernment King  Charles  I,  and  not  his  Puritan  Parliament, 
had  a  friend ;  and  after  the  execution  of  that  king,  the 
Virginia  Assembly  denounced  the  act,  proclaimed  his  son 
rightful  king,  and  made  it  treason  to  think  or  utter  any- 
thing against  the  House  of  Stuart  or  in  favor  of  a  Puritan 
Parliament.3 

As  a  consequence  of  such  defiance  the  Parliament  caused 
a  commission  to  be  issued  for  reducing  Virginia  to  sub- 
mission. Charges  against  Maryland  were  made  at  the 
same  time,  principally,  however,  by  Richard  Ingle  of  no 
"  blessed  memory  " ;  and  the  lord  proprietor  so  easily  re- 
futed his  charges  that  the  name  of  his  province  was  not 
inserted  in  the  commission.  But  what  Ingle  did  not  suc- 
ceed in  by  open  attack  was  accomplished  by  the  under- 
hand measures  of  another;  and  there  is  little  room  for 
doubt  that  William  Claiborne  was  solely  or  at  least  chiefly 
responsible  for  that  measure.  At  any  rate  he  succeeded 
in  getting  himself  appointed  one  of  the  four  commis- 
sioners ;  and  in  one  place  the  wording  of  the  commission 
was  changed  so  that  in  the  place  of  the  word  "  Virginia,"  it 
read,  "all  the  plantations  within  the  Bay  of  Chesapeake." 
The  only  other  one  of  the  commissioners  who  had  much 
interest  in  either  of  the  provinces  was  Richard  Bennett, 
one  of  those  Puritan  leaders  who,  having  gone  out  from 
Virginia,  had  found  an  asylum  in  Maryland.  But  although 
he  had  this  reason  to  be  grateful  to  the  lord  proprietor, 
he  was,  nevertheless,  hostile  to  him  on  account  of  his 
Catholic  faith. 

It  was  near  the  close  of  the  year  1651  when  the  com- 

1  Hening,  Statutes  at  Large,  Vol.  I,  p.  277. 

2  Winthrop,  Vol.  II,  p.  334  old  ed. ,  or  407  new  ed. 
a  Hening,  Vol.  I,  pp.  360,  361. 


INTRODUCTION  23 

missioners  entered  upon  their  duties  in  Virginia.  After 
having  reduced  that  province  to  submission,  they  appointed 
Bennett  governor  and  Claiborne  secretary  of  state,  and 
then  proceeded  to  Maryland,  where  they  arrived  the  last 
of  March,  1652.  Their  first  step  there  was  to  remove 
Governor  Stone.  And  they  reinstated  him  only  after 
they  had  completely  wiped  out  the  lord  proprietor's 
authority  by  naming  the  members  of  the  council,  by 
providing  that  the  inhabitants  should  engage  themselves 
to  be  true  and  faithful  to  the  commonwealth  of  Eng- 
land, and  by  requiring  that  all  legal  processes  should  run 
in  the  name  of  the  Keepers  of  the  Liberties  of  England.1 

Upon  learning  what  the  commissioners  had  done,  the 
lord  proprietor  at  once  began  to  seek  a  legal  remedy. 
But  before  he  had  accomplished  anything  along'  that  line, 
all  his  efforts  were  needed  to  give  the  authorities  in  Eng- 
land the  most  weighty  reasons  for  not  uniting  Virginia 
and  Maryland  under  one  government.2  The  year  after 
he  had  presented  those  reasons,  which  well  answered  their 
purpose,  Cromwell  dissolved  Parliament  and  caused  him- 
self to  be  declared  protector  with  all  the  authority  of  a 
king.  Then,  just  as  the  protector  acted  on  the  theory 
that  he  was  the  successor  to  the  crown,  so  the  lord  proprie- 
tor —  his  charter  still  remaining  intact  —  not  unnaturally 
felt  that  there  was  no  reason  why  he  should  not  hold  his 
province  under  the  protector  as  he  had  done  under  the 
late  king.  Accordingly,  he  instructed  Governor  Stone  to 
proceed  on  that  basis.3  Stone  obeyed.  The  protector  un- 
doubtedly favored  this  course  of  the  lord  proprietor ;  and 
Bennett  and  Claiborne,  the  commissioners  of  the  late 
Parliament,  had  no  lawful  authority  to  interfere. 

But  the  Puritans  who,  after  having  retired  from  Vir- 

i  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1636  to  1667,  p.  271. 
2  Ibid.,  p.  280.  *Ibid.,  p.  300. 


24  INTRODUCTION 

ginia  had  settled  in  Maryland,  gave  trouble  to  the  gov- 
ernor. In  1650  they  had  refused  to  send  delegates  to 
the  Assembly,  alleging  as  their  reason  for  the  refusal, 
that  they  thought  that  under  the  Puritan  Parliament 
the  lord  proprietor's  charter  was  endangered.1  Further 
trouble  arose  when  they  refused  to  obey  the  governor's 
order  to  march  against  the  Indians.  Nearly  150  of 
them  had  signed  petitions  to  the  commissioners  com- 
plaining of  the  governor.  So,  very  soon  after  he  had 
begun  to  administer  the  government  according  to  the 
instructions  he  had  received  from  the  lord  proprietor, 
those  commissioners  again  came  over  from  Virginia,  and, 
regardless  of  their  want  of  authority,  proceeded  a  second 
time  to  reduce  the  province  to  submission.  After  Gov- 
ernor Stone  had  rejected  their  offers  for  a  peaceful  settle- 
ment and  threatened  them  with  violence,  a  small  force 
of  Puritans  under  the  command  of  Bennett  marched  to 
St.  Mary's,  and  the  submission  which  they  demanded  was 
then  obtained  from  the  governor  without  the  shedding  of 
blood.  The  next  step  of  the  commissioners  was  to  hand 
over  the  government  to  Captain  William  Fuller  and  nine 
others  who  were  to  serve  as  commissioners,  or  a  council 
of  state,  under  the  lord  protector  —  Bennett  and  Clai- 
borne directing  that  they  should  proceed  as  nearly  as 
might  be  according  to  the  laws  of  England,  and  that 
Catholics  should  not  be  permitted  to  vote  at  an  election 
of  delegates  to  serve  in  the  legislative  Assembly.2 

Governor  Stone's  account  of  these  proceedings  of  Ben- 
nett and  Claiborne  drew  from  the  lord  proprietor  a 
remonstrance  to  the  protector,  the  effect  of  which  was 
that   the  latter  wrote  a  letter  to  Bennett  commanding 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1637-38  to  1664, 
pp.  327,  328. 

2  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1636  to  1667,  p.  311  etseq. 


INTRODUCTION  25 

that  he  and  the  other  Virginians  should  give  the  Mary- 
landers  no  further  trouble.  But  without  waiting  for 
this  letter,  the  lord  proprietor  rebuked  Stone  for  sub- 
mitting with  so  little  resistance,  and  directed  him  to 
resume  the  office,  or  else  —  if  he  were  afraid  to  do  so  — 
suffer  Captain  Barber  to  be  named  as  his  successor.  In 
pursuance  of  this  direction  Stone  recovered  possession  of 
the  records,  and  after  this  act  had  aroused  the  hostility 
of  the  Puritans  he  prepared  for  an  attack  upon  their 
settlements.  He  soon  had  a  force  of  about  130  men,  and 
with  it  set  out  for  the  Severn.  But  when  the  conflict  had 
been  joined,  Stone  and  his  men  found  that  they  had  to  con- 
tend against  Commissioner  Fuller  with  about  175  men, 
who  fired  on  their  front,  and  also  against  the  men  of  a 
merchant  ship  from  London  and  a  trading  craft  from 
New  England,  who  fired  on  their  rear.  The  result  was 
that  Stone  was  quickly  defeated  with  heavy  loss  and  that 
he  surrendered  upon  promise  of  quarter.  But  as  Fuller's 
Puritan  honor  did  not  require  the  keeping  of  that  promise, 
a  court-martial  was  held,  and  Stone  and  nine  others  were 
condemned  to  death.  Four  of  the  condemned  were  then 
shot  down  ;  and  the  lives  of  Stone  and  the  other  four  were 
spared  only  after  the  intercession  of  women  and  soldiers.1 
For  more  than  a  year  the  Puritan  conquerors  used  their 
victory  in  such  a  manner  as  could  not  fail  to  reflect  dis- 
honor upon  their  names.  But  in  the  meantime  the  lord 
proprietor  was  not  idle  in  England.  On  the  contrary,  he 
was  busy  urging  the  home  government  to  hear  and  decide 
his  case.  After  he  had  been  kept  waiting  until  the  latter 
part  of  the  year  1656,  a  decision  in  his  favor  was  rendered. 
The  following  year  articles  of  agreement  between  him 
and  Richard  Bennett  were  passed,  by  which  the  govern- 

1  Hammond,  "Leah  and  Rachel ;  or  the  Two  Fruitful  Sisters,  Virginia 
and  Maryland,"  etc. 


26  INTRODUCTION 

ment  was  to  be  fully  restored  to  the  lord  proprietor.1 
Those  articles  were  executed  at  the  very  close  of  the  year 
1657 ;  and  thereafter  Claiborne  ceased  to  be  a  dangerous 
enemy  to  the  lord  proprietor's  rights.2 

But  less  than  two  years  later,  one  to  whom  the  lord 
proprietor  had  by  an  unfortunate  choice  intrusted  the 
office  of  governor  became  either  the  leader  or .  else  the 
mere  instrument  of  a  small  group  of  men  who  were  seek- 
ing to  rob  their  superior  of  his  authority.  It  was  in  July, 
1656,  while  the  case  against  the  Puritan  commissioners 
was  yet  undecided,  that  the  lord  proprietor  issued  a  com- 
mission to  Captain  Josias  Fendall  to  succeed  Stone, 
who  was  at  that  time  in  prison,  as  governor.3  The  new 
governor  accomplished  nothing  until  after  the  execution 
of  the  articles  of  agreement  by  which  the  lord  proprietor 
was  restored  to  his  rights.  From  that  time  all  seems  to 
have  gone  well  until  the  death  of  Oliver  Cromwell  in  the 
year  1658.  But  the  weakness  of  his  son  and  successor, 
Richard,  soon  produced  a  state  of  extreme  uncertainty 
with  respect  to  the  fate  of  the  home  government ;  and  it 
may  be  that  this  was  the  temptation  which  led  the  men 
of  Kendall's  party  to  get  possession  of  what  power  they 
could,  in  the  hope  that  affairs  in  England  might  take  such 
a  turn  as  would  enable  them  to  retain  what  they  got. 
At  any  rate,  a  more  satisfactory  explanation  for  their  pro- 
ceedings does  not  appear. 

It  was  in  the  session  of  assembly  that  met  on  Kebruary 
28,  1659-60,  that  Governor  Kendall,  Thomas  Gerrard, 
Nathaniel  Utie,  —  the  latter  two  were  of  the  council, — 
and  the  majority  of  the  house  of  delegates  struck  their 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1636  to  1667,  p.  332  et  seq. 

2  In  the  year  1685,  however,  Claiborne,  in  alliance  with  Penn,  sought 
the  issue  of  a  writ  of  quo  warranto  against  the  Maryland  charter:  see 
Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1667  to  1687-88,  pp.  452,  454,  455. 

3  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1636  to  1667,  p.  323  et  seq. 


INTRODUCTION  27 

blow  for  the  overthrow  of  the  lord  proprietor's  power  and 
attempted  to  make  the  house  of  delegates  supreme. 
By  this  means  a  commonwealth,  similar  to  that  which  had 
existed  in  the  mother  country,  was  to  be  established. 

The  delegates  took  the  first  step  in  these  proceedings 
by  informing  the  governor  and  council  that  they  judged 
their  house  to  constitute  a  lawful  assembly  without  de- 
pendence on  any  other  power  in  the  province,  and  also 
that  they  judged  their  house  to  be  the  highest  provincial 
court  of  judicature.  Thereupon,  two  conferences  were 
held  between  the  governor,  council  and  house  of  dele- 
gates, in  the  second  of  which  Governor  Fendall  de- 
clared it  to  be  his  belief  that  by  the  Maryland  charter 
King  Charles  I  had  intended  to  give  the  freemen  or  their 
deputies  full  power  to  make  and  enact  laws  without  the 
lord  proprietor's  assent.  Three  members  of  the  council  — 
among  whom  was  Philip  Calvert,  secretary  of  the  province 
and  brother  of  the  lord  proprietor  —  protested.  Yet,  in 
the  face  of  that  protest,  the  delegates,  continuing  as  they 
had  begun,  informed  the  governor  and  council  that  they 
could  no  longer  sit  as  an  upper  house  of  the  Assembly, 
but  that  they  might  have  seats  in  the  Assembly,  sit- 
ting as  one  house.  It  was  further  agreed  that  although 
the  governor  should  sit  as  president  of  that  house,  the 
office  of  speaker  should  be  continued,  and  the  delegates 
should  reserve  to  themselves  the  right  of  adjourning  or 
dissolving  the  Assembly.  Finally,  as  Governor  Fendall 
surrendered  his  commission  from  the  lord  proprietor  and 
accepted  a  new  one  from  the  Assembly,  it  was  not  to  be 
feared  that  he  would  venture  to  overpower  the  delegates 
in  that  body,  through  his  right  to  summon  to  it  by  special 
writ  any  number  of  freemen.1 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1637-38  to  16G4, 
pp.  388-391. 


28  INTRODUCTION 

But  although  these  treacherous  men  so  completely 
stripped  the  lord  proprietor  of  his  authority,  they  seem 
to  have  had  little  military  force  or  little  popular  support 
with  which  to  defend  themselves  and  what  they  had  done. 
By  the  time  the  news  had  reached  England,  Charles  II 
had  become  king.  The  lord  proprietor,  upon  receiving 
the  information,  removed  Fendall,  made  his  brother  Philip 
governor,  and  obtained  letters  from  the  king  command- 
ing all  to  acknowledge  and  support  his  government,  and 
directing  Berkeley,  the  governor  of  Virginia,  to  give  any 
help  that  might  be  needed.1  The  new  governor  met 
with  no  resistance,  Berkeley's  assistance  was  not  needed, 
and  once  more  the  lord  proprietor's  authority  was  fully 
restored. 

For  the  next  twenty  years  the  home  government  was 
too  stable  to  be  the  occasion  of  any  disturbance  in  the 
colonies.  Moreover,  in  the  year  1661,  Charles  Calvert, 
the  lord  proprietor's  eldest  son,  succeeded  Philip  Calvert 
as  governor  ;  and  after  serving  in  that  capacity  for  four- 
teen years  he  succeeded  his  deceased  father  as  lord  pro- 
prietor. With  the  exception  of  a  few  short  intervals  he 
resided  in  the  province  from  the  time  he  became  governor 
until  the  year  1684.  From  the  outset  he  had  to  contend 
with  the  remnant  of  that  opposition  which  had  so  long 
been  kept  active  by  external  agitations  ;  and  he  is  to 
be  given  credit  for  keeping  that  remnant,  during  his 
residence  in  the  province,  so  well  under  control  that  even 
when  Bacon's  rebellion,  of  the  year  1676,  broke  out  in  Vir- 
ginia he  quickly  crushed  a  similar  movement  in  his  prov- 
ince. But  his  too  arbitrary  or  too  illiberal  measures  were 
better  adapted  to  the  mere  suppression  of  an  opposition  than 
to  the  dissolving  of  it  in  a  spirit  of  general  good  feeling. 

Also,  as  a  consequence  of  the  grant  of  the  province  of 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1636  to  1667,  pp.  392-399. 


INTRODUCTION  29 

Pennsylvania  to  William  Penn  in  the.  year  1681  the  lord 
proprietor  of  Maryland  was  confronted  with  one  of  those 
occasions  in  which  his  presence  was  much  needed  at  one 
and  the  same  time  both  in  the  province  and  before  the 
home  government.  Whatever  may  be  the  prevailing 
opinion  as  to  the  character  of  William  Penn,  it  is  clear 
that  in  dealing  with  the  Catholic  lord  proprietor  of  Mary- 
land his  Quaker  principles  did  not  cause  the  spirit  of 
brotherly  love  to  control  his  actions.  On  the  contrary, 
after  his  strong  desire  to  acquire  for  his  province  the 
command  of  a  suitable  water  communication  with  the 
ocean  had  made  him  extremely  covetous  of  the  north- 
eastern part  of  Maryland,  he  did  not  scruple  to  league 
himself  with  the  unprincipled  Duke  of  York,  not  only 
for  the  purpose  of  robbing  Lord  Baltimore  of  that  part 
of  his  province,  but  even  —  when  the  duke  became  King 
James  II  —  for  making  void  the  Maryland  charter. 

Nowhere  in  that  charter,  except  in  the  preamble,  was 
there  anything  whatsoever  said  about  the  land  to  be  con- 
tained in  the  grant  being  hactenus  inculta  —  hitherto  un- 
cultivated—  and  inhabited  only  hy  savages.  And  even 
if  there  had  been  a  provision  to  that  effect  it  would  law- 
fully have  impaired  that  grant  but  little  ;  for  at  the  time 
it  passed  the  great  seal  none  but  Indians,  the  Claiborne 
men,  and  Fleet  were  making  their  abode  within  it. 

It  was  not  until  the  year  1638  that  the  Swedes  made  their 
first  permanent  settlement  within  what  was  then  the  limits 
of  Maryland.1  From  that  time,  however,  they  continued  to 
make  settlements  on  the  west  side  of  the  Delaware  River 
without  receiving  any  attention  from  the  Maryland  au- 
thorities or  being  otherwise  seriously  disturbed  until  the 
year  1655,  when  they  were  subdued  by  the  Dutch.  Four 
years  lateii  the  Maryland  government  endeavored  to  effect 

1  Archer,  "  The  Dismemberment  of  Maryland." 


30  INTRODUCTION 

a  settlement  with  the  Dutch.1  But  this  had  not  been 
accomplished  when  King  Charles  II  granted  to  his 
brother  James,  Duke  of  York,  all  the  territory  extending 
from  the  west  bank  of  the  Connecticut  to  the  eastern 
shore  of  the  Delaware.  Upon  receiving  this  grant  the 
duke  despatched  a  military  force  with  an  order  to  reduce 
all  the  inhabitants  of  this  territory  to  his  subjection. 
And  in  the  execution  of  that  order  the  settlements  west 
of  the  Delaware  were  also  reduced  with  the  result  that 
the  land  there  was  claimed  by  the  duke,  even  though  a 
part  of  it  was  within  the  limits  of  Maryland. 

Such  was  the  status  when  Penn  petitioned  for  his  char- 
ter. While  his  petition  was  under  consideration,  Lord 
Baltimore's  agents  requested  that  the  southern  boundary 
of  the  proposed  province  should  not  extend  south  of 
Susquehanna  fort,  which  was  on  the  fortieth  degree  of 
north  latitude,  and,  therefore,  on  the  northern  boundary 
of  Maryland.  Furthermore,  the  agents  asked  that  a 
clause  be  inserted  saving  Lord  Baltimore's  rights.  Al- 
though Penn  found  no  fault  with  these  requests,  yet  when 
his  charter  had  passed  the  seals  it  was  found  that  the  only 
provision  with  respect  to  the  line  between  Pennsylvania 
and  Maryland  was  that  the  former  should  be  bounded  on 
the  south  "  by  a  circle  drawn  at  twelve  miles  distance 
from  New  Castle,  northward  and  westward  to  the  begin- 
ning of  the  fortieth  degree  of  north  latitude,  and  thence 
by  a  straight  line  westward."2 

As  New  Castle  was  afterward  found  to  be  twenty  miles 
south  of  the  fortieth  degree,  it  became  clear  that  Charles 
II  had  granted  to  Penn  a  considerable  strip  of  territory 
which  his  father  had  previously  granted  to  Lord  Balti- 
more.    What  seems  to  have  been  a  mistake  of  eight  miles 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1636  to  1667,  p.  369  et  seq. 

2  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1667  to  1687-88,  pp.  272,  273. 


INTRODUCTION  31 

as  to  the  distance  of  New  Castle  from  .the  fortieth  degree 
may  have  been  wholly  due  to  inaccurate  geographical 
knowledge  ;  but  the  boundary  provision  with  regard  to 
the  circle  looks  much  like  a  device  of  Penn  to  get  terri- 
tory which  he  knew  belonged  to  Lord  Baltimore. 

Very  soon  after  he  was  in  possession  of  his  charter 
from  the  king,  Penn  obtained  from  the  Duke  of  York  a 
deed  of  enfeoffment  for  the  land  on  the  west  side  of  the 
Delaware  as  far  south  as  Cape  Henlopen.  Then,  after 
first  visiting  the  northern  border  of  Maryland  and  getting 
more  light  on  the  situation  of  places  there,  he  had  a  con- 
ference with  Lord  Baltimore.  But  at  that  conference  he 
would  not  listen  to  Baltimore's  proposal  to  settle  the 
boundary  question  by  taking  an  observation  on  the  spot 
for  locating  the  fortieth  degree,  and  then  accepting  that 
parallel  of  latitude  as  the  line  between  the  two  prov- 
inces. Instead  of  this  he  proposed  that  the  northern 
boundary  of  Maryland  should  be  determined  by  measur- 
ing two  degrees  of  latitude  due  north  from  Watkins's 
Point,  which  was  the  southern  limit  of  the  eastern  shore  of 
Maryland  ;  this  being  rejected,  he  proposed  that  the  for- 
tieth degree  should  be  ascertained  by  accepting  the  old 
observation  at  Cape  Henlopen  and  then  by  measuring 
northward  ;  finally,  he  went  to  such  an  extraordinary 
length  as  to  propose  that  Lord  Baltimore  should  move 
both  his  southern  and  his  northern  boundary  thirty  miles 
to  the  south  in  order  that  Pennsylvania  might  have  an 
outlet  on  the  Chesapeake.1  The  result  was  that  a  second 
conference  closed  with  no  prospect  of  an  agreement.  It 
began  to  look  as  if  it  would  be  necessary  to  lay  the  dis- 
pute before  the  home  government.  And  although  Lord 
Baltimore's  presence  was  at  this  time  needed  in  England 
because  of   his   having   incurred  the   displeasure  of   the 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1667  to  1687-88,  pp.  374-394. 


32  INTRODUCTION 

crown  with  respect  to  trade,  and  because  he  had  been 
charged  with  neglect  of  Protestantism,  yet  it  seems  prob- 
able that  the  leading  purpose  for  which  he  sailed  to  Eng- 
land in  the  year  1684  was  to  defend  his  rights  in  the  case 
against  Penn  and  the  Duke  of  York. 

Moreover,  it  was  in  this  particular  that  the  more  im- 
mediate course  of  events  turned  most  strongly  against 
him.  The  Duke  of  York,  as  if  to  make  Penn  more  secure 
in  the  possession  of  the  land  which  he  —  without  himself 
having  title  to  it  —  had  enfeoffed  to  Penn,  obtained  from 
his  brother,  the  king,  a  grant  of  all  the  territory  "between 
New  Jersey  and  Maryland  "  as  far  south  as  Cape  Henlo- 
pen.  Then,  soon  after  Lord  Baltimore's  arrival  in  Eng- 
land, the  Duke  became  King  James  II.  Thereafter  no 
room  was  left  for  doubt  as  to  which  way  the  case  would 
be  decided.  Upon  ascending  the  throne  James  referred  it 
to  the  commissioners  of  trade  and  plantation.  It  being 
too  early  in  his  reign  for  those  commissioners  to  think  of 
offending  his  Majesty,  they,  regardless  of  both  justice  and 
facts,  decided  that  by  Lord  Baltimore's  charter  only  "  land 
uncultivated  and  inhabited  by  savages  "  was  included  in 
his  province,  and  that  the  land  in  question  had  been  in- 
habited by  Christians  before,  at  the  time  of,  and  ever 
since  the  charter  of  Maryland  was  granted.  On  the 
basis  of  their  decision  they  recommended  that  the  east 
half  of  the  land  lying  between  the  bays  of  Delaware  and 
Chesapeake,  and  extending  from  the  latitude  of  Cape  Hen- 
lopen  north  to  the  fortieth  degree,  should  be  adjudged  to 
belong  to  the  crown.1  The  judgment  was  rendered  as  the 
commissioners  recommended,  and  thereby  the  king  was 
enabled  to  make  Penn  more  secure  in  this  part  of  his 
possessions. 

This  was  not  all.     The  greater  part  of  the  boundary 

i  Proceedings  ot  the  Council,  1667  to  1687-88,  p.  455  et  seq. 


INTRODUCTION  33 

between  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania  was  yet  undeter- 
mined. Lord  Baltimore's  charter  still  stood  in  the  way 
of  Penn's  desire  to  secure  possession  of  the  head  of  the 
Chesapeake  Bay.  It  is  clear  that  the  affable  and  wily 
Quaker  was  a  favorite  of  the  king,  and  that  the  latter  felt 
himself  to  be  loosely  bound  by  the  acts  of  his  royal  ances- 
tors. Acid  to  these  particulars  the  growing  desire  of  the 
home  government,  in  the  interest  of  trade,  for  the  more 
immediate  control  of  the  government  in  the  colonies,  and 
about  the  whole  explanation  is  given  for  the  issue  of  the  " 
writ  of  quo  warranto  in  April,  1687,  against  the  Mary- 
land charter.1 

As  the  king  sought  safety  in  flight  before  judgment  on 
that  writ  was  obtained,  the  charter  was  saved  from 
destruction.  Penn  was  therefore  forced  either  to  desist 
or  to  resort  to  other  action  against  Lord  Baltimore.  He 
chose  the  latter,  and  it  was  not  until  the  year  1767  that 
the  disputed  boundary  was  fully  determined.  However, 
after  the  failure  of  the  writ  of  quo  warranto  that  dispute 
was  very  largely  of  the  nature  of  a  private  suit  between 
the  two  proprietors,  and  had  scarcely  any  bearing  upon 
the  government  of  Maryland  further  than  to  cause  occa- 
sional disturbances  on  the  border. 

It  was  the  effects  of  the  dispute  for  the  few  years  pre- 
ceding the  English  Revolution  of  1688  that  were  the  most 
far-reaching,  because  the  lord  proprietor  was  thereby  kept 
away  from  his  province  at  a  most  critical  period  in  its  his- 
tory. As  already  stated,  Charles  Calvert  had  only  sup- 
pressed the  opposition.  In  fact,  he  had  suppressed  it  in 
such  a  way  as  to  cause  it  to  grow  in  strength.  For,  in- 
stead of  being  a  leader  of  men  by  means  of  gentleness, 
sympathy,  and  persuasive  appeal,  he  was  cold,  stern,  and 
self-centred,  and  was  not  over-scrupulous  as  to  his  choice 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1667  to  1687-88,  p.  452  et  seq. 


34  INTRODUCTION 

of  measures  for  immediate  triumph  over  the  opposition. 
He  filled  the  most  important  offices  with  the  members  of 
his  own  family.  He  restricted  the  suffrage.  He  endeav- 
ored to  keep  the  leaders  of  the  opposition  out  of  the 
house  of  delegates  by  trying  to  avoid  summoning  to  that 
house  one-half  of  those  who  had  been  elected.  When 
that  house  was  obstinate  about  passing  some  of  his  favorite 
bills,  he  called  its  members  before  him  in  the  upper 
house,  and  there  usually  succeeded  in  forcing  from  them 
their  reluctant  assent.  He  vetoed  acts  of  assembly  several 
years  after  they  had  been  passed.  Only  a  few  years  sub- 
sequent to  a  fall  of  more  than  fifty  per  cent  in  the  price 
of  Maryland  tobacco,  the  rent  on  all  land  to  be  granted 
after  the  year  1670  was  doubled.  Finally,  while  a  very 
large  per  cent  of  the  people  were  Protestants,  the  govern- 
ment was  kept  by  the  proprietor  under  the  control  of 
Catholics. 

In  the  light-  of  these  facts,  his  own  success  in  manag- 
ing the  opposition,  up  to  the  time  of  his  departure  for 
England  in  the  year  1684,  must  be  attributed  in  no  small 
measure  to  weakness  in  the  political  life  of  the  yet 
sparsely  settled  province.  But  as  more  than  half  a  cen- 
tury was  to  elapse  before  political  activity  became  strong 
and  vigorous,  all  might  have  continued  well  for  the  lord 
proprietor,  if  he  could  have  remained  in  the  province  or 
if  he  had  intrusted  his  government  during  his  absence  to 
some  faithful  and  able  administrator.  Neither  of  these 
alternatives,  however,  was  to  be.  Before  departing  he 
made  his  son,  Benedict  Leonard,  a  minor,  nominal  gov- 
ernor, and  divided  the  real  authority  of  the  office  among 
the  members  of  a  board  of  deputy  governors,  at  the  head 
of  which  he  placed  his  cousin,  George  Talbot,  a  man  of 
Irish  birth.1 

i  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1681  to  1685-86,  pp.  246-250. 


INTRODUCTION  35 

He  had  not  been  long  absent  before- Talbot  boarded  a 
vessel  on  which  Christopher  Rousby,  one  of  his  Majesty's 
collectors  of  customs,  was  carousing  with  the  captain.  A 
violent  quarrel  thereupon  arose  in  which  Talbot  stabbed 
Rousby  to  the  heart.  The  captain,  refusing  to  surrender 
Talbot  to  the  Maryland  government  for  trial,  carried  him 
to  Virginia.  But  after  the  governor  and  council  of  Vir- 
ginia had  likewise  refused  to  deliver  him  to  the  Maryland 
government,  his  wife,  aided  by  two  Irishmen,  succeeded 
by  some  device  in  securing  his  release  from  prison,  and  car- 
ried him  back  to  his  home.  He  was  afterward  taken  and 
put  in  prison  at  St.  Mary's  to  await  orders  from  the  king 
concerning  his  trial.  The  king  directed  that  the  Maryland 
government  should  deliver  him  to  the  governor  and  coun- 
cil of  Virginia,  and  that  that  body  should  deliver  him 
back  to  the  captain,  who  should  bring  him  to  England 
for  trial.  He  was,  however,  tried  at  James  City  and  found 
guilty  of  feloniously  killing  Rousby.  Although  he  was 
pardoned  by  the  king,  yet,  as  the  lord  proprietor  had 
already  been  heavily  fined  for  giving  Rousby  trouble  while 
in  the  discharge  of  the  duties  of  his  office,  this  whole 
affair  was  an  unfortunate  one.1 

Nothing  further  of  serious  consequence  happened  until 
after  a  son  was  born  to  the  Catholic  King  James  II.  On 
that  occasion  the  lord  proprietor  was  ordered  by  the 
king's  privy  council  to  have  the  birth  proclaimed  in  his 
province,  and  to  have  days  appointed  there  for  a  solemn 
thanksgiving  for  the  " inestimable  blessing."2  The  due 
execution  of  that  order,  and  the  consequent  rejoicing  of 
the  Catholics  over  the  birth  of  a  prince  to  a  Catholic 
king  whose  reign  had  been  almost  unendurable,  was  re- 
ceived by  the  Protestants  of  Maryland  in  much  the  same 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1681  to  1685-86,  pp.  298-305,  475-483. 
*Ibid.,  1687-88  to  1693,  pp.  40,  41,  44. 


36  INTRODUCTION 

spirit  as  similar  demonstrations  were  received  by  the 
Protestants  of  the  mother  country. 

In  the  meantime  the  lord  proprietor  had  again  shown 
his  inability  as  a  judge  of  the  fitness  of  men  to  govern  by 
sending  over  William  Joseph,  a  quaint  fanatic,  to  succeed 
George  Talbot  as  president  of  the  board  of  deputy  gov- 
ernors. His  opening  address  to  the  Assembly  was  an 
exposition  of  his  idea  about  the  divine  right  of  kings. 
Near  the  opening  of  it  he  said  :  "  Nor  ought  we  to  be 
strangers  to  the  end  and  duty  for  which  the  Divine  Provi- 
dence hath  ordered  us  thus  to  meet.  I  say  Providence 
hath  ordered,  for  there  is  no  power  but  of  God  ;  and  the 
power  by  which  we  are  assembled  here  is  undoubtedly 
derived  from  God  to  the  King,  and  from  the  King  to  His 
Excellency  the  Lord  Proprietary,  and  from  his  said  Lord- 
ship to  Us."  The  remainder  of  what  he  said  was  devoted 
to  an  attempt  to  teach  the  members  of  the  Assembly  their 
duty  :  first,  to  God  ;  second,  to  the  king  ;  third,  to  the 
lord  proprietor  ;  and,  fourth,  to  themselves.  The  whole 
address  was  of  the  nature  of  a  long  and  ridiculous  sermon, 
the  spirit  of  which  seemed  calculated  to  stifle  any  thought 
of  either  religious  or  political  liberty.1 

Before  the  close  of  the  day  on  which  it  was  delivered  a 
storm  arose  in  the  Assembly  ;  the  immediate  occasion  of 
which  was  that,  although  the  members  of  the  lower  house 
of  this  Assembly  had  at  a  former  session  taken  the  oath  of 
fidelity  to  the  lord  proprietor,  they  were  requested  to  do  so 
again.  Because  of  their  refusing  they  were,  two  days 
later,  called  into  the  upper  house,  where  Joseph  told  them 
that  their  action  implied  rebellion,  and  that  by  the  laws 
of  the  province  they  were  bound  to  take  the  oath  under 
pain  of  banishment,  fine,  or  imprisonment.     But  Joseph 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1684  to  1692,  pp.  147— 
153. 


INTRODUCTION  37 

was  not  so  successful  with  this  speech,  as  the  lord  proprie- 
tor had  been  with  his  on  somewhat  similar  occasions.  On 
the  contrary,  the  lower  house,  on  the  following  day,  after 
first  resolving  that  they  were  ready  to  take  the  oath 
according  to  law  —  but  not  from  fear  of  any  penalties  — 
further  resolved  that  they  knew  not  how  to  satisfy  the 
law  and  the  government  with  respect  to  the  oath  other- 
wise or  better  than  they  had  already  done  ;  and  as 
Joseph,  even  with  the  help  of  the  council,  was  unable  to 
prevail  upon  them,  as  members  of  the  Assembly  to  take 
the  oath  for  the  second  time,  he  had  to  let  the  matter  pass 
after  proroguing  the  Assembly  for  two  days,  in  order  that 
the  same  persons  might  be  obliged  to  take  the  oath  as 
ordinary  citizens.  There  was  little  harmony  during  the 
remainder  of  the  session  ;  and  although  the  lower  house 
was  prevailed  upon  to  pass  a  bill  for  a  perpetual  commemo- 
ration and  thanksgiving  on  every  tenth  day  of  June  for 
the  birth  of  the  prince,  the  government  could  have  been 
by  no  means  strengthened  thereby. 

The  crisis  was  now  drawing  near.  While  the  above 
events  were  taking  place  in  the  Assembly,  the  Revolution 
of  1688  was  in  progress  in  the  mother  country  ;  and  in 
the  second  month  after  the  prorogation  William  and  Mary 
ascended  the  throne  of  England.  The  lord  proprietor 
was  given  an  order  to  have  the  new  monarchs  proclaimed 
in  his  province.  He  immediately  despatched  a  messenger 
to  carry  the  order  to  his  council.  But  the  messenger  died 
on  the  way  and  the  order  failed  to  reach  its  destination.1 
The  consequence  was  that  such  a  proclamation  was  made 
in  Virginia  and  New  England  long  before  the  Protestant 
king  and  queen  received  any  official  recognition  in 
Maryland. 

This  proved  to  be  of  great  moment  to  the  government 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1687-88  to  1693,  pp.  113,  114. 


38  INTRODUCTION 

of  the  province.  For  several  years  a  few  of  the  lord 
proprietor's  enemies  had  now  and  then  tried  to  spread  a 
rumor,  of  their  own  fabrication,  that  the  Catholics  were 
forming  a  plot  with  the  Indians  to  murder  all  the  Protes- 
tants. The  very  limited  intercourse  between  settlements 
in  distant  parts  of  the  province  made  it  easier  to  make  the 
inhabitants  of  one  settlement  believe  a  false  account  of 
what  was  going  on  in  another  ;  and,  now,  the  failure  of 
the  lord  proprietor's  Catholic  government  to  recognize 
the  new  Protestant  monarchs  was  just  the  thing  needed 
by  those  who  were  endeavoring  to  effect  an  uprising, 
through  the  spread  of  their  account  of  how  an  armed  force 
of  nine  thousand  Indians,  French,  and  Papists  were  about 
to  fall  upon  the  Protestants  or  had  already  begun  the 
attack.1  It  was  only  by  the  prompt  and  brave  action  of 
Henry  Darnall,  the  alleged  leader  of  the  plot,  in  hurrying 
from  place  to  place  for  the  purpose  of  convincing  the 
people  of  the  falsity  of  the  rumor,  that  the  uprising  at 
this  time  was  quelled  in  its  early  stage. 

Even  then  the  enemy  was  neither  vanquished  nor  dis- 
couraged. John  Coode,  its  leading  spirit,  was  a  man  of 
dash  and  fiery  vehemence.  He  had  long  been  associated 
with  a  traitor,  Josias  Fendall  ;  and  he  had  married  a 
daughter  of  Thomas  Gerrard,  who  had  been  a  member  of 
the  council  under  Fendall.  In  the  year  1681,  Coode  had 
been  arrested  and  tried  on  the  charge  of  having  joined  with 
Fendall  in  an  attempt  to  stir  up  another  revolt.  It  was 
easy  for  him  to  be  first  a  Catholic  and  then  a  Protestant. 
Although  he  had  once  been  a  clergyman,  he  was  a  vain, 
shiftless,  and  unprincipled  man,  caring  nothing  for  Prot- 
estantism, but  ardent  and  determined  in  craving  revenge 
on  the  lord  proprietor. 

After  the  rumor  about  the  Catholics  and  Indians  had 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1687-88  to  1693,  p.  84. 


INTRODUCTION  39 

failed,  in  March,  1689,  to  accomplish  its  purpose,  the  opposi- 
tion, among  whom  were  several  assemblymen  who  had  pub- 
licly averred  that  the  rumor  was  false  and  malicious,  was 
organized  into  what  was  called  a  Protestant  Association, 
with  Coode  as  captain  of  the  militia.  William  and  Mary 
still  remained  unrecognized  by  the  government.  The 
report  was  spread  that  the  government  houses  were  being 
fortified.  Some  of  the  Associators  went  in  arms  to  inves- 
tigate. The  records  were  first  seized.  Shortly  after  the 
deputy  governors  and  other  chief  officers,  who  had  been 
able  to  collect  a  force  of  only  about  eighty  men,  surrendered 
before  a  shot  had  been  fired.1  And  thus  the  government 
changed  hands  without  bloodshed. 

The  work  of  the  Association  met  with  rather  limited 
approval,  indifference,  and  even  opposition  from  many 
Protestants.  But  this  must  be  attributed  in  part  to  the 
yet  unawakened  political  life,  and  also  to  the  character 
of  the  leader.  While,  on  the  other  hand,  had  the  lord 
proprietor's  government  been  more  liberal,  and  manifested 
more  zeal  in  promoting  the  welfare  of  all,  it  would  not 
have  been  in  want,  at  this  trying  time,  of  a  numerous 
body  of  valiant  defenders. 

After  the  Association  had  gained  control,  the  new  mon- 
archs  were  proclaimed,  an  election  of  delegates  was  held 

—  in  some  counties  this  was  under  military  supervision 

—  an  assembly  was  called,  and  all  offices  were  filled  with 
Protestants.  In  a  series  of  falsehoods  mixed  with  a  few 
grains  of  truth,  Coode  represented  to  the  king  how  the 
lord  proprietor  had  forfeited  his  rights,  and  how  the  Asso- 
ciation had  acted  only  in  the  interest  of  his  Majesty's 
service  and  the  Protestant  religion.2  Later,  each  of  the 
older  counties,  except  Anne  Arundel,  sent  an  address  to 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1687-88  to  1693,  p.  116. 

2  Ibid.,  pp.  101-107. 


40  INTRODUCTION 

the  king  in  support  of  the  movement,  and  beseeching  him 
to  take  the  government  into  his  own  hands.  Counter 
addresses,  denouncing  Coode  and  his  followers  in  strong 
terms,  were  also  sent  ;  but  while  the  former  addresses 
had,  in  all,  nearly  450  signatures,  the  latter  had  less  than 
one-half  that  number.1  Finally,  a  committee  appointed  by 
the  new  Assembly  represented  to  the  crown  that  under 
the  proprietary  government  none  but  papists  held  office  ; 
that  Catholicism  was  encouraged  while  the  Church  of 
England  was  grievously  neglected  ;  that  freedom  of  elec- 
tions was  violated,  and  only  a  select  portion  of  those  who 
had  been  elected  delegates  were  summoned  to  serve  in  the 
Assembly  ;  that  the  ordinance  power  granted  by  the 
charter  was  exceeded  ;  that  an  unwarrantable  power  to 
dispense  with,  veto,  or  repeal  laws  was  exercised  by  the 
lord  proprietor  ;  that  excessive  fees  were  enacted  by  offi- 
cers ;  and  that  the  province  was  governed  by  "  cruel,  san- 
guinary, unjust,  unreasonable,  illegal,  tyrannical  acts  of 
Assembly  craftily  obtained  from  the  unwary  representa- 
tives of  the  province  contrary  to  the  laws  of  England  and 
his  Lordship's  charter."2  All  these  charges  were  couched 
in  exaggerated  language,  but  they  were  by  no  means  with- 
out foundation. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  at  the  time  of  the  flight  of 
James  II  the  quo  warranto  proceedings  against  the  Mary- 
land charter  were  in  progress.  The  termination  of  the 
suit,  by  the  king's  flight,  left  the  charter  unimpaired,  and 
the  proceedings  were  never  resumed.  Still,  the  restora- 
tion of  a  proprietary  province  proved  to  be  not  in  accord 
with  King  William's  purpose  in  accepting  the  English 
crown.  When  he  accepted  that  crown  he  was  seeking 
greater  resources  with  which  to  carry  on  war  against  his 

i  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1687-88  to  1693,  pp.  128-147. 
2  Ibid.,  pp.215,  216. 


INTRODUCTION  41 

old  enemy,  Louis  XIV.  He  therefore  had  a  strong  desire 
not  only  that  the  colonists  and  colonial  trade  should  be 
protected  from  the  enemy,  but  also  that  his  resources 
should  not  be  curtailed  by  obstructions,  in  colonial  ports, 
to  the  trade  of  England.  For  these  reasons  he  was  dis- 
posed to  make  the  most  of  the  least  opportunity  for 
changing  a  proprietary  government  to  a  royal  one. 

In  April,  1689,  the  king  in  council  requested  the  com- 
mittee for  trade  and  plantations  to  consider  what  course 
would  be  most  advisable  to  pursue  with  the  proprietary 
provinces  of  Maryland,  Pennsylvania,  and  Carolina  in  order 
to  provide  for  the  better  defence  of  the  colonial  possessions 
against  the  enemy.  The  same  month  that  committee 
recommended  that  Parliament  should  take  up  the  question 
of  making  those  provinces  more  immediately  dependent 
on  the  crown  ;  and  one  month  later  it  particularly  urged 
that  this  should  be  done  in  the  case  of  Maryland.1 

Before  anything  of  this  kind  had  been  done,  however, 
there  came  from  Maryland  the  several  addresses  telling 
what  the  Protestant  iVssociators  had  done,  and  it  is  need- 
less to  say  that  the  king  and  his  advisers  approved  of 
their  deeds.  Furthermore,  only  a  little  later,  while  the 
attorney  general  was  considering  what  might  be  done  in 
the  case,  another  letter  came  from  Coode  stating  that  some 
papists,  confederates  of  one  of  the  late  deputy  governors, 
had  murdered  John  Payne,  another  of  his  Majesty's  col- 
lectors of  customs  while  in  the  discharge  of  the  duties  of 
that  office.2  Then,  too,  there  came  at  this  time  the  news 
of  how  the  Indians  of  Canada,  instigated  by  the  French, 
had  made  a  raid  into  New  York  and  massacred  the  inhab- 
itants of  Schenectady. 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1687-88  to  1693,  p.  100. 

2  Instead  of  being  in  the  discharge  of  the  duties  of  the  office  of  king's 
collector,  he  was,  at  the  time  he  was  killed,  acting  as  a  captain  under  a 
warrant  from  Coode. 


42  INTRODUCTION 

In  the  light  of  these  accounts  from  America,  Lord 
Chief  Justice  Holt,  in  June,  1690,  gave  the  following 
opinion  :  "  I  think  it  had  been  better  if  an  inquisition 
had  been  taken,  and  the  forfeitures  committed  by  the 
Lord  Baltimore  had  been  therein  found  before  any  grant 
be  made  to  a  new  governor.  Yet  since  there  is  none,  and 
it  being  in  a  case  of  necessity,  I  think  the  King  may  by 
his  commission  constitute  a  governor  whose  authority  will 
be  legal,  though  he  must  be  responsible  to  the  Lord  Balti- 
more for  the  profits.  If  an  agreement  can  be  made  with 
the  Lord  Baltimore,  it  will  be  convenient  and  easy  for  the 
governor  that  the  King  shall  appoint.  An  inquisition 
may  at  any  time  be  taken  if  the  forfeiture  be  not  par- 
doned, of  which  there  is  some  doubt."  1 

The  next  important  move  was  taken  on  August  21, 
1690,  when  it  was  ordered  in  council  that  the  attorney 
general  should  forthwith  proceed  by  scire  facias  against 
Lord  Baltimore's  charter  in  order  to  vacate  the  same. 
He,  accordingly,  proceeded  on  the  ground  that  the  seiz- 
ure of  the  government  into  the  king's  hand  was  the  only 
means  of  preserving  the  province.  And  after  Lord  Balti- 
more and  his  counsel  on  the  one  side,  and  Coode  and 
Cheseldyne  —  the  latter  having  been  speaker  of  the  late 
lower  house  of  Assembly  —  on  the  other  side,  had  been 
given  a  hearing  before  the  committee  for  trade  and  planta- 
tions, the  government  of  the  province  was  taken  entirely 
away  from  Lord  Baltimore,  without,  however,  depriving 
him  of  his  territorial  rights. 

The  royal  government  was  well  established  by  the 
middle  of  the  year  1692,  and  for  the  next  twenty- three 
years  Maryland  was  administered  as  a  royal  province. 
During  that  period  the  officers  that  had  hitherto  been 
appointed  and  instructed  by  the  proprietor  were  appointed 

i  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1687-88  to  1693,  p.  185. 


INTRODUCTION  43 

and  instructed  by  the  crown  ;  laws  that  were  passed  by 
the  General  Assembly  were  subject  to  the  crown's  dissent ; 
and  writs  and  legal  processes  ran  in  the  name  of  the  king. 
Although  the  old  offices  and  the  old  legislative  and  ad- 
ministrative forms  were,  in  the  main,  preserved,  neverthe- 
less this  was  a  time  in  which  a  heavy  and  effective  blow 
was  given  to  the  hitherto  rather  absolute  government  of 
the  province,  and  a  step  that  was  long  and  full  of  conse- 
quence was  taken  toward  popular  government.  The 
English  Revolution  of  1688  had  transferred  the  sovereign 
power  in  the  home  government  from  the  king  to  the 
houses  of  Parliament,  and,  consequently,  extended  in  no 
small  measure  the  "  privileges,  franchises,  and  liberties  " 
of  British  subjects.  The  Maryland  Revolution  of  the  fol- 
lowing year  resulted,  for  the  inhabitants  of  that  province, 
in  a  security  of  their  rights  as  British  subjects  that  proved 
to  be  far  more  effective  than  it  had  formerly  been.  By 
the  two  revolutions,  therefore,  the  rights  of  the  people  of 
Maryland  were  not  only  much  extended,  but  they  were  better 
secured.  The  manner  of  electing  and  summoning  delegates 
to  serve  in  the  legislative  Assembly  was  no  longer  deter- 
mined by  an  ordinance  of  the  lord  proprietor,  or  of  his 
governor  and  council,  but  by  a  legislative  enactment. 
Never  again  was  a  county  —  the  unit  of  representation  in 
the  lower  house  of  that  Assembly  —  erected  by  executive 
ordinance,  but  only  by  act  of  Assembly.  The  lower  house 
effectively  denied  that  a  new  office  could  be  created  with- 
out its  assent.  The  legislature,  and  not  the  governor  and 
council  alone,  determined  for  a  time  the  fees  of  officers. 
The  administration  of  justice  was  to  some  extent  decen- 
tralized. The  Church  of  England  was  established  by  act 
of  assembly.  In  attempting  to  separate  the  territorial 
from  the  governmental  relations,  the  strength  of  feudal 
custom  was  weakened,  whereby  the  land  ^office  ceased  to 


44  INTRODUCTION 

be  so  much  a  private  possession  of  the  proprietor  and 
became  more  public  in  nature. 

The  proprietor  having  become  a  Protestant,  the  govern- 
ment was  restored  to  him  in  the  year  1715.  But  as  the 
laws  and  the  precedents  made  in  the  royal  period  survived, 
the  powers  of  lord  proprietor  and  people  at  the  beginning 
of  the  Restoration  were  far  more  equally  balanced  than 
they  had  been  before  the  Revolution  of  1689.  After  the 
Restoration  the  lord  proprietor  had  to  contend  with  a 
political  power  that  was  developing  within,  rather  than 
with  hostility  that  was  excited  from  without.  Several 
years  of  industrial  depression,  and  an  attempt  of  the  lord 
proprietor  to  deny  that  the  statutes  of  the  mother  country 
extended  to  his  province,  keenly  awakened  the  political 
feeling  of  the  people,  whose  numbers  had  increased  with 
the  growth  of  years  and  caused  the  contradictions  of  the 
charter  with  respect  to  the  proprietor's  powers  and  the 
people's  rights  to  become  more  fully  realized. 

Scarcely  had  the  controversy  with  respect  to  English 
statutes  ended  in  victory  for  the  people's  representatives 
when,  about  1735,  a  marked  industrial  movement  began. 
Hitherto,  nearly  all  the  people  of  the  province  had  been 
engaged  in  the  raising  of  tobacco,  and  their  plantations 
lay,  for  the  most  part,  along  the  banks  of  rivers  or  the 
shore  of  the  bay,  with  little  communication,  except  by 
water,  between  them.  But  now,  as  the  remoter  parts  of 
the  province  began  to  be  settled,  wheat  was  raised,  roads 
were  cleared,  bridges  were  built,  towns  sprang  up,  and  the 
facilities  for  social  and  commercial  intercourse  were  thereby 
greatly  increased.  At  the  same  time  the  extremes  of  so- 
cial condition  rapidly  diverged.  So,  by  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  social  pressure  had  risen  far  above 
that  of  the  previous  century,  and  the  pulse  of  political 
life  beat  with  vigor.     Finally,  the  subversion  of  feudal 


INTRODUCTION  45 

customs  during  the  period  of  royal  government  caused 
the  proprietor  to  meet  with  stronger  opposition  to  what 
he  claimed  as  his  territorial  rfghts ;  and  this  very  opposi- 
tion was  a  leading  force  in  animating  the  strengthened 
political  life  and  inspiring  it  to  resist  and  to  attack  the 
government  with  such  effect  that  the  people  of  Maryland 
were  at  last  permitted  to  enjoy  the  most  of  their  rights  as 
British  subjects,  regardless  of  all  powers  granted  by  the 
charter  to  the  lord  proprietor. 


PART   I 
TERRITORIAL   AND   SOCIAL   RELATIONS 


CHAPTER  I 

LAND  AND  THE  LAND  OFFICE 

Had  the  military  features  of  the  old  system  of  land 
tenure  been  preserved  at  the  time  of  the  founding  of 
Maryland,  the  administration  of  the  land  office  might  have 
been  the  controlling  force  in  the  entire  proprietary  system  ; 
but,  as  it  was,  the  military  element  in  the  feudal  system 
had  disappeared,  and  the  only  variety  of  tenure  in  Mary- 
land was  free  and  common  socage,  the  obligations  of 
which  were  fealty  and  rent,  and  its  liability,  escheat. 
Primogeniture  took  no  strong  root  in  the  province.  The 
attempts  of  priests  to  secure  vast  tracts  of  land  for  the 
church  were  thwarted  by  the  introduction,  at  the  instance 
of  the  lord  proprietor,  of  the  principle  of  the  English 
statute  of  mortmain. 

Nevertheless,  the  system  was  essentially  unlike  any- 
thing in  use  in  modern  times.  As  in  all  mediaeval  fiefs, 
both  ownership  of  the  soil  and  jurisdiction  in  everything 
pertaining  to  the  territory  were  originally  vested  in  the  lord 
proprietor.  With  that  ownership  and  that  jurisdiction 
went  extensive  rights  and  privileges ;  and  not  only  did 
those  rights  and  privileges  begin  to  suffer  curtailment  long 
before  the  final  overthrow  of  the  proprietary  system,  — 
thereby  weakening  that  system  at  a  vital  point,  —  but  by 
his  effort  to  preserve  them  the  lord  proprietor  provoked  the 
opposition  to  more  vigorous  attacks  on  his  governmental 
rights.  A  study  of  the  land  system,  or  of  Maryland  as  a 
e  49 


50  MARYLAND   AS    A    PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

fief,  is  therefore  an  essential  part  of  the  study  of  the  entire 
proprietary  system. 

Under  the  proprietary  regime  the  granting  of  land  and 
the  regulation  of  its  settlement  were  primarily  functions 
not  of  township,  county,  or  the  General  Assembly,  but 
originally  they  were  entirely  those  of  the  lord  proprietor, 
who  performed  them,  or  directed  the  performance  of 
them,  through  the  issue  of  ordinances  and  instructions. 
All  officers  to  whom  the  lord  proprietor  delegated  any  of 
his  territorial  jurisdiction  were  by  him  appointed  and 
kept  subject  to  removal  at  his  pleasure. 

Before  the  first  colonists  had  left  England  the  proprie- 
cor  had  given  out  his  first  conditions  of  plantation,  and 
agreed  therein  to  grant  or  cause  to  be  granted  two  thou- 
sand acres  to  every  adventurer  who  should  take  into  the 
province  in  the  year  1633,  for  the  purpose  of  settlement 
there,  five  men  between  the  ages  of  sixteen  and  sixty. 
For  taking  into  the  province  any  number  of  persons  less 
than  five  the  adventurer  was  to  receive  a  grant  of  one  hun- 
dred acres  for  each  one  between  the  ages  of  sixteen  and 
sixty,  and  fifty  acres  for  every  child  under  the  age  of 
sixteen.  The  annual  rent  in  every  case  was  to  be  ten 
pounds  of  good  wheat  for  every  fifty  acres^i  For  transport- 
ing five  persons  into  the  province  after  the  first  year  only 
one  thousand  acres  were  to  be  granted,  and  the  rent  was 
also  to  be  higher.1  All  former  conditions  were  revoked 
or  amended  with  each  new  and  successive  issue  that 
appeared  in  1641,  1648,  1649,  and  1658.  The  last  of 
these  were,  in  later  years,  several  times  modified  ;  and 
from  the  earliest  times  the  proprietor  often  gave  special 
terms,  in  the  form  of  special  warrants,  as  an  encourage- 
ment or  favor  to  particular  persons.  In  1683  the  acquir- 
ing of   right   to  land  by  transporting  persons  into  the 

i  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1636  to  1667,  pp.  47,  48. 


LAND  AND  THE  LAND  OFFICE  51 

province  ceased,  and  thereafter  title  .could  be  acquired 
only  after  the  payment  of  caution,  or  purchase  money,  the 
regular  rate  of  which  was  at  first  fixed  at  one  hundred 
pounds  of  tobacco  for  every  fifty  acres.1 

Any  person  entitled  to  land  by  the  conditions  of  planta- 
tion was  in  the  first  place  required  to  record  his  right  or 
rights  in  the  secretary's  office ;  as,  "  Came  into  the  prov- 
ince January  12, 1637,  Captain  Robert  Wintour,  who  trans- 
ported Richard  B.,  A.  W.,  J.  S.,  B.  P.,  T.  W.— G.  T.  a 
boy  aged  fifteen  years."2  The  recording  of  such  rights 
was  either  accompanied  or  followed  by  demands  for  the 
amount  of  land  due  ;  and  such  demands  were  sooner  or 
later  followed  by  a  warrant  of  survey  signed  by  either  the 
governor  or  the  secretary  and  directed  to  the  surveyor 
general.  After  the  survey  had  been  made  by  the  sur- 
veyor, a  certificate,  signed  by  the  surveyor  general,  was 
returned  to  the  office  where  its  contents  were  inserted  in 
a  patent  which  was  passed  by  the  governor  in  the  name 
and  under  the  seal  of  the  lord  proprietor.3  The  patent  or 
grant  was  of  the  nature  of  a  deed,  and  gave  the  consid- 
eration for  which  the  grant  was  made,  the  description 
of  the  grant  as  found  in  the  certificate  of  survey,  and, 
finally,  the  conditions  of  tenure. 

Such  in  the  early  years  were  the  essential  steps  in  the 
process  of  acquiring  title  to  land,  but  the  business  was 
made  much  less  simple  by  many  attendant  proceedings, 
such  as  securing  proof  of  rights,  the  sale  of  rights,  peti- 
tions, caveats,  and  resurveys.4 

Occasionally,  when  there  was  a  strong  desire  to  encour- 
age settlement  in  a  particular  district,  such  as  one  near  a 
disputed  boundary  line,  authority   was   vested   in   some 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1667  to  1687-88,  p.  394  et  seq. 

2  Kilty,  "The  Landholder's  Assistant,"  p.  67. 

3  Ibid.,  pp.  70-73.  *  Ibid.,  pp.  89-91,  133  et  seq. 


52  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

person  or  commission  in  that  locality  to  prove  rights 
and  to  issue  warrants  of  survey  returnable  to  the  secre- 
tary's office.1  With  such  exceptions  all  land  business 
proceeded  directly  from  St.  Mary's,  or  later  from  Annapo- 
lis as  the  seat  of  government. 

After  the  granting  of  land  had  continued  for  several 
years,  a  considerable  variety  of  holdings  appeared. 

The  most  common  of  these  was  the  ordinary  freehold 
which  was  held,  nominally  of  some  one  of  the  proprietor's 
manors,  subject  to  the  payment  to  the  proprietor  of  an 
annual  rent  and,  after  1658,  a  fine,  equal  to  one  year's  rent 
for  every  alienation  of  it.2 

During  the  administration  of  Cecilius,  the  first  lord  pro- 
prietor, from  1632  to  1675,  authority  was  given  by  him  for 
the  erection  into  a  manor  of  any  grant  containing  one  thou- 
sand acres  or  more.  Before  1676  about  sixty  manors, 
averaging  a  little  less  than  three  thousand  acres  each,  had 
been  erected  for  others  than  those  of  the  lord  proprietor's 
own  household.  However,  with  the  accession  of  Charles, 
the  second  lord  proprietor,  in  1675,  the  erection  of  manors 
almost  ceased. 

A  manor  differed  from  a  mere  freehold  in  that  it  was 
given  a  name,  and  in  that  the  grantee  was  allowed  to  hold 
court-baron  and  court-leet,  and  have  all  fines  and  profits 
belonging  thereto.  Further,  the  early  grants  of  manors 
gave  the  grantee  the  advowsons  of  churches  and  unre- 
stricted privileges  of  hunting  for  any  game.3  The  court- 
baron  was  given  jurisdiction  over  civil  cases  in  which  the 
damages  did  not  exceed  a  fine  of  forty  shillings,  while 
the  court-leet  took  cognizance  of  criminal  offences  com- 
mitted within  the  precincts  of  the  manor.     To  what  extent 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1636  to  1667,  p.  469. 

2  Land-office  Records,  Liber  1,  folio  54. 
8  Ibid.,  folio  43  et  seq. 


LAND   AND   THE  LAND   OFFICE  53 

such  courts  were  held,  there  remains  .no  evidence  except 
the  records  of  a  court-baron  held  on  St.  Gabriel's  Manor 
in  the  year  1656,  and  the  records  of  a  few  sessions  of  both 
court-baron  and  court-leet  held  'on  St.  Clement's  Manor 
between  the  years  1659-72.1  The  records  of  the  latter 
manor  show  that  it  had  its  steward,  constable,  and  bailiff, 
and  that  a  jury  of  twelve  men,  after  hearing  the  charges 
or  complaints,  made  its  presentments,  often  fixing  the 
fines,  and  occasionally  referring  the  matter  to  the  gov- 
ernor of  the  province.  If  the  fine  imposed  by  the  jury 
was  thought  to  be  too  excessive,  it  might  be  revised  by 
affeerors  sworn  for  that  purpose. 

Only  in  the  grants  of  the  first  three  manors  was  any 
portion  of  the  land  set  apart  as  demesne  land,  that  is, 
land  which  was  not  to  be  granted  out  in  tenancy  nor  in 
any  way  severed  or  aliened  from  the  said  manor.  The 
grant  of  a  manor,  like  that  of  a  freehold,  subjected  the 
grantee  to  the  payment  to  the  proprietor  of  the  annual 
rent,  and  the  fine  for  every  alienation. 

In  1665  the  proprietor  issued  instructions  directing  that 
in  every  county  at  least  two  manors,  containing  not  less 
than  six  thousand  acres  each,  be  surveyed  and  set  apart 
for  his  private  use.2  Each  of  these  proprietary  manors 
was  placed  in  charge  of  a  steward,  who  leased  it  in  parcels 
to  tenants  usually  for  three  lives,  or  for  a  long  term  of 
years,  at  a  rent  seldom  exceeding  ten  shillings  per  hundred 
acres.  Owing  to  failure  to  preserve  the  bounds  of  them, 
these  manors  much  dwindled  in  size  or,  in  some  cases, 
entirely  vanished  ;  while  such  portions  of  them  as  were 
preserved  suffered  from  shameful  neglect  by  poorly  paid 
and  incompetent  stewards.     As  a  consequence,  the  bounds 

1  Bozman,  II,  p.  581  ;  Mayer,  »•  Ground  Rents  in  Maryland,"  pp. 
151-157. 

2  Kilty,  pp.  95-98. 


J 


54  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

between  tenements  could  not  be  found,  leases  were  lost, 
and  the  rents  not  paid.1 

In  addition  to  the  proprietary  manors,  the  proprietor 
made  several  other  reserves  for  the  purpose  of  confining 
surveys  and  settlements  to  those  parts  of  the  province  in 
which  it  was  desired  that  they  should  be  made,  or  be- 
cause of  the  appearance  of  copper  or  other  ore,  the  extraor- 
dinary fertility  of  the  soil,  or  the  contiguity  to  towns. 
Although  portions  of  such  reserves  were  leased,  yet  none 
of  them  were  surveyed,  laid  out,  and  named  as  the  manors 
were.2 

In  1766  the  proprietor  appointed  a  commission  to  sell 
his  manors  and  reserves  ; 3  and  although  the  sale  of  them 
was  somewhat  slow,  yet  nearly  fifty  thousand  acres  were 
sold  in  seven  years,  and  this  meant  that  the  proprietary 
lands  corresponding  to  those  of  the  lord's  demesne  in  the 
mediaeval  fief  were  to  disappear.4 

Land  from  which  grants  were  made  according  to  the 
conditions  of  plantation  became  known  as  vacant  land,  and 
was  left  uncultivated.  A  considerable  quantity  of  this 
remained  in  nearly  all  parts  of  the  province  down  to  the 
final  overthrow  of  the  proprietary  government.  But  it 
had  been  the  practice  to  locate  under  land  warrants  by 
selecting  the  most  rich  and  fertile  land  without  regard  to 
the  regularity  of  its  area  or  making  it  in  any  way  coincide 
with  the  boundary  of  land  previously  granted.  There- 
fore, especially  in  the  older  counties,  the  most  of  what 
came  to  be  left  of  this  vacant  land  was  not  only  the  poor- 

1  Calvert  Papers,  No.  2,  pp.  79,  83,  89 ;  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol. 
II,  p.  62. 

2  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  I,  p.  426  et  seq. 

3  Council  Records,  February  21,  1766. 

4  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  335,  392 ;  Table  of  Sales, 
Maryland  Hist.  Soc. 


LAND   AND   THE   LAND   OFFICE  55 

est  in  quality,  but  it  lay  in  such  small,  irregular  parcels  as 
to  be  of  but  little  value.1 

Although  the  lord  proprietor  or  his  officers  made  the 
rules  according  to  which  surveys  were  made,  yet  in  after 
years  it  was  found  that  the  amount  of  land  included  in 
many  of  the  early  certificates  of  survey  exceeded  what  it 
had  been  intended  to  grant.  Such  excess  became  known 
as  surplus  land  ;  and  it  arose  from  the  surveyor's  practice 
of  stating  the  distance  from  one  boundary  —  such  as  a 
river,  a  creek,  a  tree,  or  an  artificial  mark  —  to  another 
on  erroneous  measurement,  or  by  estimate  without  any 
measurement  at  all.2  Although  the  grants  read  "more  or 
less "  with  respect  to  quantity,  yet  that  expression  was 
interpreted  by  Charles,  the  second  proprietor,  to  "  extend 
to  ten  in  the  hundred,  over  or  under,  and  no  more  ;  " 3 
while  by  later  proprietors  the  words  "more  or  less"  were 
entirely  disregarded.4 

In  order  to  recover  what  he  claimed  as  his  just  dues 
from  such  surplus,  the  proprietor  instructed  his  surveyor 
general  to  make  search  and  inquiry  for  the  same,  and, 
later,  he  offered  a  reward  for  its  discovery.  Whenever 
any  was  found,  he  caused  a  resurvey  to  be  made  in  order 
to  ascertain  the  quantity.  Then,  for  a  time,  all  that  was 
necessary  was  to  ask  the  grantee  to  take  up  the  surplus 
according  to  the  terms  stated  in  the  conditions  of  planta- 
tion that  were  in  force  either  at  the  time  of  the  original 
grant  or  at  the  time  of  the  discovery  of  the  surplus.  But 
the  time  was  not  long  in  coming  when  the  proprietor 
found  that  stronger  measures  were  needed  to  accomplish 
his  end.  Accordingly,  he  had  it  proclaimed  that  any 
grant  found  to  contain  surplus  should  be  vacated  if  the 
grantee  did  not  apply  for  a  warrant  of  resurvejs  and  take 

1  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  I,  p.  53  et  seq.         2  Kilty,  p.  196. 
zIbid.,  pp.  113,  114.  *  Ibid.,  pp.  200-204 ;  C.  R.,  June  14,  1733. 


56  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY  PROVINCE 

up  all  such  surplus  on  terms  named  by  him.1  But,  even 
then,  although  Charles,  the  second  proprietor,  during  his 
presence  in  the  province,  doubtless  received  a  consid- 
erable return  for  surplus  land,  during  the  period  of  royal 
government  laws  were  made  for  limiting  the  power  of  the 
proprietor  in  that  particular  ;  and  although  after  the  res- 
toration of  the  proprietary  government  a  similar  law  was 
lost  by  the  lord  proprietor's  veto,  resolutions  of  the  lower 
house,  together  with  looseness  in  the  description  of  the 
original  grants,  destroyed  the  effect  of  those  proclama- 
tions which  were  issued  to  secure  the  proprietor's  right  to 
surplus  land.2 

All  land  within  the  province,  held  as  it  was  by  socage 
tenure,  was  liable  to  escheat  —  an  ancient  term  to  which 
the  proprietor  gave  a  broad  interpretation.  The  number 
of  escheats  found  in  the  records  is  large,  and  there  were 
many  ways  in  which  land  might  fall  back,  or  escheat,  to 
the  proprietor,  the  most  common  of  which  were  lack  of 
heirs  and  non-payment  of  rent.3 

The  mode  of  proceeding,  however,  in  respect  to  land 
alleged  to  be  escheated,  seems,  during  the  early  years  of 
the  colony,  to  have  been  fair  and  cautious.  Whenever  a 
person  conceived  any  land  to  be  escheatable,  he  presented 
a  petition  to  the  proper  tribunal,  praying  that  a  manda- 
mus might  issue  for  the  summoning  of  a  jury  to  ascertain 
and  declare  on  oath  whether  the  land  was  escheated  or 
not,  and,  if  so,  by  what  means.  If  the  mandamus  were 
issued,  it  was  to  the  sheriff  of  the  county  in  which  the 
land  in  question  lay,  commanding  him  to  summon  and 
swear  a  jury  of  the  neighborhood  for  the  purpose  stated  in 

i  Kilty,  pp.  200-204  ;  C.  R.,  June  14,  1733. 

2  Lower  House  Journal,  June  1,  1739  ;  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  I, 
p.  37  et  seq. 

3  Kilty,  p.  173  et  seq.  ;  see  also  Calvert  Papers,  No.  1,  pp.  291,  297. 


LAND   AND   THE   LAND    OFFICE  57 

the  petition,  and  to  make  due  retur.n  of  their  inquisi- 
tion and  verdict.  If,  then,  the  provincial  court,  in  view 
of  the  inquisition  and  verdict  of  the  jury,  decided  that 
the  land  had  escheated,  the  petitioner  might  apply  for  a 
warrant  to  resurvey  it  for  his  own  benefit  ;  and  after  the 
resurvey  was  made,  and  he  had  paid  for  the  same,  he 
learned  on  what  terms  he  might  acquire  title.  After  the 
suspension  of  the  proprietary  government  in  1689,  the 
former  regulation  governing  escheats  was  superseded  by 
a  much  more  arbitrary  one  ;  for  the  proprietor's  chief 
agent,  thinking  that  favorable  terms  were  not  to  be 
expected  under  the  newly  established  order  of  things, 
adopted  the  plan  of  selling  land  as  escheats,  without  any 
condemnation  or  preparatory  form.  Out  of  this  plan  grew 
the  established  custom  by  which,  if  any  one  thought  land 
to  be  escheatable  for  want  of  heirs,  he  might,  and  often 
did,  venture  the  expense  of  a  warrant  and  a  survey,  and 
then  paid  the  price  required  to  acquire  title  thereto.  Title 
acquired  in  this  way  was  good  so  long  as  suit  was  not 
brought  by  a  claimant,  and  the  land  was  proved  not  to  be 
an  escheat. 

Not  later  than  1733  the  proprietor  began  to  encourage 
the  discovery  of  land  which  had  escheated,  by  offering  to 
give  one-third  of  it  to  the  discoverer  of  any  such,  and  the  Vy 
first  chance  to  purchase  the  remaining  two-thirds.  But 
toward  the  close  of  the  proprietary  period  the  number  of 
escheat  warrants  much  decreased,  while  the  weakness  of 
the  justices  of  the  provincial  court  and  the  alert  opposi- 
tion of  the  lower  house  seriously  threatened  to  strip  the 
proprietor  of  all  benefit  from  this  ancient  right.1 

On  the  side  of  ownership,  then,  it  is  clear  that  before 
the  American  Revolution  most  of  the  essentials  of  a  fief 

1  Gilraore  Papers ;  Proprietary  Papers  ;   see  also  Proceedings  of   the 
Council,  1687-88  to  1693,  pp.  102,  215,  219. 


58  MARYLAND    AS    A   PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

had  lost  their  force  in  Maryland.  The  proprietary  manors 
and  reserves,  —  corresponding  to  the  lord's  demesne  of  the 
mediaeval  fief,  —  after  a  long  period  of  unprofitable  man- 
agement of  the  former,  were  both  gradually  disappearing 
by  a  slow  process  of  sale.  The  proprietor  was  unable, 
after  the  year  1738,  to  enforce  his  claim  to  surplus  land, 
while  his  benefit  from  the  disputed  right  to  escheated  land 
was  doubtful.  The  attempt  to  erect  manors  for  the  largest 
tenants,  and  thereby  to  create  a  nobility  on  which  he  might 
rely  for  support,  was  given  up  before  the  close  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  Everything  was,  therefore,  nearly 
levelled  to  the  simple  freehold  from  which  the  proprietor 
continued  to  receive  his  rents  and  some  alienation  fines. 

So  long  as  the  province  remained  a  true  fief,  the  lord  pro- 
prietor's territorial  jurisdiction,  and  hence  the  land  office, 
was  for  the  most  part  his  own  private  affair  ;  and  such  was 
the  status  until  the  Revolution  of  1689.'  But  during  the 
period  of  royal  government  the  fief  received  shocks  from 
which  it  recovered  only  in  part  after  the  restoration  of 
the  proprietary  government.  Territorial  jurisdiction,  or 
the  organization  and  administration  of  the  land  office, 
was  therefore  divided  into  three  periods. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  first  period  and  for  several 
years  thereafter  nearly  all  business  relating  to  land  was 
attended  to  by  the  governor,  council,  and  secretary.  The 
governor  was  directed  to  pass  all  grants  under  the  great 
seal,  while  the  secretary  was  to  record  them.  Both  gov- 
ernor and  secretary  were  to  attend  to  the  collection  of 
rents,  but  sheriffs  and  the  attorney  general  were  soon 
asked  to  assist.  Before  the  first  colonists  left  England  the 
lord  proprietor  had  appointed  a  surveyor,  but  his  commis- 
sion does  not  appear  in  the  records.  For  a  time  the  sec- 
retary was  the  surveyor  and  had  one  or  more  deputies 
under  him.     In  1641  occurred  the  first  appointment  of 


LAND  AND  THE  LAND  OFFICE  59 

a  surveyor  general,  whose  office  was.  somewhat  of  the 
nature  of  the  steward  of  an  English  manor.  During 
the  first  period  he  was  always  a  member  of  the  council 
of  state,  and  was  not  so  much  expected  to  make  surveys 
as  to  appoint  surveyors  and  control  their  work.  Until 
the  appointment  of  an  examiner  general,  in  1685,  he 
signed  the  certificates  of  survey,  and  in  1658  his  signa- 
ture began  to  appear  on  all  grants.  In  1671  he  was 
instructed  to  hold  courts  of  inquiry  once  a  year  in  each 
county  for  examining  titles  by  which  land  was  held,  and 
for  ascertaining  whether  any  one  possessed  more  land 
than  was  his  due,  and  what  rent  ought  to  be  paid  ;  all  in- 
formation thus  gained  he  was  to  enter  in  a  book,  make 
two  copies  of  the  same,  send  one  to  the  proprietor  and 
the  other  to  the  receiver  general.1  In  1670  the  secretary 
was  instructed  to  prove  all  rights  to  land  ;  to  inquire 
after,  properly  describe,  and  record  all  escheats  ;  to  enter 
clearly  on  record  all  the  proprietary  manors  and  reserves ; 
to  prepare  a  rent-roll,  diligently  to  search  all  conceal- 
ments of  any  of  the  proprietor's  rents,  and  give  notice  of 
any  such  concealments  to  the  proprietor  and  the  governor ; 
to  give  special  attention  to  procuring  the  payment  of 
alienation  fines,  and  to  have  a  list  of  alienations  recorded.2 
In  response  to  the  proprietor's  desire  to  have  a  list  of 
escheats  with  the  quantity,  quality,  and  estimated  value 
of  each,  the  governor,  in  1673  and  earlier,  directed  each 
sheriff  to  return  a  list  for. his  county.3  Probably  as  early 
as  1671,  and  surely  not  later  than  1676,  the  proprietor 
appointed  two  receivers  general  of  his  rents  and  other 
dues,  and  authorized  them  to  appoint  deputies.4     In  1678 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1667  to  1687-88,  p.  94  et  seq. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  73  et  seq. 

8  Calvert  Papers,  No.  1,  pp.  291,  297  ;  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1667 
to  1687-88,  p.  122. 

4  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1671  to  1681,  p.  119  et  seq. 


60  MARYLAND    AS    A    PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

the  lord  proprietor  issued  a  proclamation  ordering  the 
justices  of  each  county  court  to  command  the  clerk  of 
their  court  to  transmit  to  the  secretary's  office  a  complete 
list  of  alienations  of  land  within  his  county  in  order  that 
the  secretary  and  the  receiver  general  might  be  able  to 
make  a  complete  rent-roll.1 

The  records  show  that  with  the  year  1670  there  began 
a  decided  increase  of  business  activity  in  territorial 
affairs,  and  an  earnest  desire  of  the  proprietor  or  his  son, 
the  governor,  to  increase  the  revenue.  One  consequence 
of  such  increased  activity  was  doubtless  the  erection,  in 
1680,  of  a  distinct  land  office.  The  secretary's  chief 
clerk,  under  the  designation  of  clerk  and  register,  was 
placed  in  charge  of  this  new  office.  He  was  intrusted 
with  the  care  of  the  records,  and  authorized  to  prove 
rights,  issue  land  warrants,  and  draw  up  grants  for  the 
same.  Four  years  later,  just  before  leaving  the  province, 
to  which  he  never  returned,  Charles,  lord  proprietor, 
created  a  land  council  of  four  members,  all  of  whom  were 
members  of  the  council  of  state.  This  new  and  special 
council  he  authorized  to  hear  and  determine  all  matters 
relating  to  land  that  should  be  brought  before  it.  He 
also  authorized  two  of  its  members,  the  secretaries  of  the 
province,  to  issue  land  warrants,  and  one  of  the  secre- 
taries with  one  of  the  other  members  to  sign  all  grants. 
He  gave  the  entire  council  instructions  in  matters  relat- 
ing to  escheats,  surveying,  rent,  leases,  caveats,  surplus 
land,  issuing  and  recording  grants,  and  grants  illegally 
or  surreptitiously  obtained.2 

Before  the  close  of  the  first  period,  therefore,  the  land 
business  had  become  thoroughly  organized  in  what  was 

i  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1671  to  1681,  pp.  159,  160. 
2  Kilty,  pp.  108-117  ;  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1681  to  1685-86,  pp. 
254-260. 


LAND    AND   THE    LAND    OFFICE  61 

chiefly  a  private  office  of  the  lord  proprietor,  which  office 
held  jurisdiction  over  the  keeping  of  the  records,  over 
everything  pertaining  to  title  to  land,  and  over  the  col- 
lection of  the  revenue  arising  thereon. 

The  land  council  continued  to  transact  its  business  until 
1689,  when  the  land  office  was  closed  and  not  reopened 
until  1694.  During  this  interval,  however,  Henry  Dar- 
nall,  a  cousin  of  the  proprietor,  and  who,  at  the  outbreak 
of  the  Revolution,  was  one  of  the  deputy  governors,  a 
member  of  the  council  of  state,  a  member  of  the  land  coun- 
cil, the  receiver  general,  and  the  leader  of  what  military 
resistance  could  be  raised  against  the  rebellion,  was  faith- 
ful and  diligent  as  the  proprietor's  agent  in  protecting,  so 
far  as  he  was  able,  the  proprietary  interests.  In  1695  he 
was  not  only  continued  as  agent  and  receiver  general,  but 
also  had  conferred  on  him,  so  far  as  the  proprietor  was 
able  to  do  so,  all  the  powers  and  duties  which  had  formerly 
been  vested  in  the  land  council.1  In  1712,  Darnall  having 
died,  Charles  Carroll,  who  for  some  time  had  been  the 
proprietor's  able  solicitor  and  his  register  in  the  land 
office,  was  appointed  successor  to  Darnall,  and  not  only 
given  all  power  necessary  to  make  a  firm  stand  for  the 
proprietary  rights,  but  also  most  liberally  rewarded  for 
his  services.2 

The  commissions  to  Darnall  and  Carroll  show  that  the 
proprietor  continued  to  regard  the  land  office,  as  estab- 
lished in  1684,  entirely  in  the  light  of  his  own  private  pos- 
session. But  when  the  royal  government  was  established, 
that  question  was  much  fought  over  by  the  proprietor, 
his  agent,  and  his  solicitor  on  the  one  side,  and  the  gov- 
ernor and  council,  the  secretary,  and  the  legislative  Assem- 
bly on  the  other.  The  governor  and  council  granted 
numerous   petitions  for  a  resurvey,   and   assumed  much 

i  Kilty,  pp.  127,  128.  2  Ibid.,  pp.  128-133. 


62  MARYLAND   AS   A    PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

of  that  right  of  judging  and  deciding  disputes  in  land 
affairs  which  had  formerly  been  vested  in  the  land  coun- 
cil.1 The  contentious  secretary,  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence, 
claimed  the  custody  of  all  papers  which  were  evidences  of 
land  titles  ;  and  he  also  claimed  the  right  to  issue  war- 
rants for  survey  and  to  receive  the  fees  paid  therefor.  He 
even  refused  to  allow  the  proprietor's  agent  to  search  the 
records  before  paying  the  ordinary  fee.  The  governor, 
council,  and  assembly  supported  the  secretary's  claim  to 
the  custody  of  the  records  on  the  ground  that  the  people 
interested  and  concerned  therein  should  have  access  to 
them  for  inspection  ;  and  it  was  finally  settled  that  the 
records  should  remain  in  the  secretary's  office,  but  that  the 
proprietor's  agent  should  have  access  to  them  free  of 
charge  for  the  purpose  of  amending  the  rent-roll.2  But 
when  the  secretary  still  insisted  on  receiving  one-half  the 
fees  for  land  warrants,  the  proprietor  raised  the  purchase 
money  on  every  hundred  acres  from  240  to  480  pounds  of 
tobacco.3  Such  an  increase  of  purchase  money  was  equiva- 
lent to  a  change  of  the  conditions  of  plantation,  and  as  a 
consequence  the  legislative  Assembly  asked  that  the  condi- 
tions of  plantation  and  the  proprietor's  instructions  to  his 
agent  should  be  made  public.  Then,  too,  the  proprietor's 
claim  to  surplus  land,  and  the  vast  amount  of  litigation 
between  parties  possessing  adjacent  tracts,  caused  much 
attention  to  be  called  to  the  incorrectness  and  carelessness 
with  which  surveyors  had  run  their  lines.  It  was  easy, 
therefore,  to  raise  a  general  complaint,  charge  the  proprie- 
tor's surveyors  with  negligence  and  incompetence,  and  to 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1687-88  to  1693,  pp.  325,  340,  355,  389- 
397  ;  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1684  to  1692,  p.  319 
et  seq. 

2  Kilty,  p.  162 ;  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1687-88  to  1693,  pp.  356, 
363,  387,  423 ;  C.  R.,  October  12,  1696. 

8L.  H.  J.,  September  14,  1704. 


LAND   AND   THE   LAND    OFFICE  63 

assert  that  they  were  public  officers.1  .  Laws  were  accord- 
ingly passed  for  obliging  the  proprietor  to  publish  his  con- 
ditions of  plantation  and  his  instructions  to  his  agent,  for 
obliging  surveyors  to  qualify  according  to  law,  and  for 
ascertaining  the  bounds  of  land. 

The  result,  then,  of  the  contention  during  the  second 
period  in  the  development  of  the  land  office  over  the  ques- 
tion of  what  were  its  public  and  what  its  private  relations, 
indicated  that  the  settlement  of  judicial  questions  relating 
to  title,  the  custody  of  the  record  of  titles,  and  some  con- 
trol over  surveying  were  public,  while  little  more  than 
those  most  essential  for  securing  the  legitimate  revenue 
were  private  in  nature.  This  meant  that  the  proprietor 
was  no  longer  to  be  regarded  as  the  absolute  lord  of  a  fief, 
but  that  with  the  exception  of  his  having  a  few  extra  and 
unusual  sources  of  income  (and  even  the  right  to  those 
was  already  disputed)  he  was  only  the  chief  landholder 
within  the  province. 

Immediately  after  the  restoration  of  the  proprietary 
government  a  new  commission  was  issued  to  Carroll,  ap- 
pointing him  "  chief  agent,  escheator,  naval  officer,  and 
receiver  general  of  all  our  rents,  arrears  of  rents,  fines, 
forfeitures,  tobaccos,  or  monies  for  land  warrants;  of  all 
ferrys,  waifs,  strays,  and  deodands ;  of  all  duties  arising 
from  or  growing  due  upon  exportation  of  tobacco  afore- 
said, tunnage  of  ships,  and  all  other  monies,  tobaccos,  or 
other  effects,"  and  also  authorizing  him  "  to  sell  or  dis- 
pose of  all  lands,  tenements,  or  hereditaments  to  us  now 
escheated  or  forfeited."2  Although  there  was  no  power 
conferred  by  this  commission  that  the  agent  might  not 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1687-88  to  1693,  p.  396 ;  Upper  House 
Journal,  November  9,  1709  ;  L.  H.  J.,  May  10,  1695,  May  1,  9,  11,  Sep- 
tember 23,  1696,  May  31,  1697,  July  8,  1699,  December  6,  1704,  May  15, 
1705,  April  5,  6,  11,  1706,  April  9,  11,  12,  1707. 

2C.  R.,  July  10,  1716. 


64  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

have  formerly  exercised,  yet  Governor  Hart,  by  nature 
shallow  and  irritable,  was  made  furious  when  he  learned 
that  the  new  Protestant  proprietor  had  permitted  a  strong 
influential  Catholic  to  retain  so  much  power.  He  told  the 
Assembly  that  he  must  resign  if  Carroll  retained  the  com- 
mission, since  his  own  power  would  be  too  much  weakened 
by  the  insufficient  number  of  offices  remaining  at  his  dis- 
posal with  which  to  reward  those  faithful  to  the  proprie- 
tor's interest.1  The  Assembly,  supporting  the  governor, 
held  that  the  offices  of  escheator  general,  naval  officer,  and 
receiver  general  required  the  holder  or  holders  thereof  to 
take  the  oath  ;  that  the  office  of  escheator  general  was  one 
of  record  and  related  to  the  administration  of  justice ;  and 
that  no  private  employee  of  the  proprietor  should  receive 
the  fines  imposed  by  acts  of  assembly.  Accordingly,  the 
two  houses  of  assembly  sent  a  joint  petition  to  the  pro- 
prietor, praying  that  the  governor  be  restored  to  full 
power.2  This  action  of  the  governor  and  Assembly, 
rather  than  the  commission,  must  have  enlarged  Carroll's 
idea  of  his  power  and  persuaded  him  to  think  of  himself 
as  the  first  officer  of  the  province ;  for  he  at  once  took  it 
upon  himself  to  fix  the  salary  of  the  governor  and  to 
advise  him  not  to  give  his  assent  to  some  bills  that  were 
awaiting  his  signature.3  Carroll  seems  to  have  retained 
his  powers  as  agent,  but  he  was  not  continued  as  register 
of  the  land  office ;  and  instead  of  becoming  the  first  officer 
of  the  province,  the  importance  of  the  office  of  agent  was 
greatly  reduced  between  1717  and  1733  by  the  law,  existing 
during  that  interval,  which  gave  an  equivalent  for  the 
proprietor's  querents  and  alienation  fines  by  imposing  an 
export  duty  on  tobacco. 

When  the  law  expired  in  1733,  the  importance  of  the 

1  U.  H.  J.,  July  20,  1716.  2  Ibid^  july  30,  n\Q, 

*Itrid..  Augusts,  1716. 


LAND    AND   THE   LAND   OFFICE  65 

office  of  agent  revived,  but  none  of  the  successors  of  Darnall 
and  Carroll  were  men  of  such  diligence  and  faithfulness  ; 
and  the  private  interests  of  the  proprietor,  apart  from  the 
receipt  of  the  tobacco  duty,  were  so  completely  neglected 
during  the  continuance  of  that  law  that  they  never  fully 
recovered.  The  rent-rolls  fell  into  confusion  by  disuse, 
the  bounds  of  proprietary  manors  were  encroached  on, 
and  the  complaint  was  raised  that  the  tenants  on  those 
manors  seldom  paid  their  dues.1  In  the  effort  to  restore 
order,  the  governor  was  instructed  to  assist  and  advise 
with  the  agent  in  farming  the  quit-rents  or  appointing 
receivers.  The  governor  was  also  to  appoint  rent-roll 
keepers  to  whom  the  quit-rent  farmers  should  be  obliged 
each  year  to  return  the  rent-rolls  ;  and  with  the  advice  of 
the  agent  he  was  to  lease  the  proprietor's  manors  and  re- 
served lands  and  appoint  such  stewards  or  other  officers  as 
should  be  thought  convenient.2  But  the  work  was  diffi- 
cult, and  in  1733  the  governor  wrote  that  the  trouble  about 
land  affairs  was  ten  times  as  great  as  that  about  all  other 
matters  whatever.3  In  1737  the  negligent  management 
of  the  agent  appeared  from  the  fact  that  he  was  unable  to 
find  some  of  the  proprietor's  instructions  to  him  ;  while 
the  activity  of  the  lower  house  appeared  in  its  investi- 
gation of  numerous  charges' of  extortion  against  farmers 
and  receivers  of  the  rents.4  In  1745  the  governor  yielded 
to  the  request  of  the  lower  house  for  an  account  of  the 
proprietor's  income  from  quit-rents.5 

While  the  publicity  thus  increased,  the  confusion  and 
neglect  continued  ;  and  in  1764  the  secretary  bitterly 
complained  that,  owing  to  loss  of  deeds  and  copies  of 
leases,   the   proprietor,    in   trials    at   law,  suffered  heavy 

1  Calvert  Papers,  No.  2,  pp.  79,  83.  4  L.  H.  J.,  May  4,  1737. 

2  C.  R.,  June  18,  1733.  5  Ibid,  September  10,  1745. 

3  Calvert  Papers,  No.  2,  pp.  89,  90. 

F 


66  MARYLAND    AS    A    PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

loss  from  defeat.1  None  of  the  agents  was  so  delinquent 
as  David  Lloyd.  At  one  time  the  secretary  wrote  that 
the  proprietor  had  heard  nothing  from  Lloyd  for  fourteen 
months.  On  different  occasions  the  governor  also  wrote 
how  Lloyd  was  at  one  time  £8000  behind  in  his  remit- 
tances ;  of  the  proprietor's  loss  on  account  of  Lloyd's 
unmethodical  way  of  doing  business  ;  and  how  Lloyd,  liv- 
ing so  far  away  on  his  own  vast  estate,  was  hardly  able  to 
attend  to  the  proprietor's  business.2  Frederick,  who  was 
at  that  time  the  proprietor,  a  conceited  voluptuary  and 
spendthrift,  bitterly  complained  of  the  ignorance  in  which 
he  was  kept  by  his  agent  with  respect  to  his  business  in- 
terests in  Maryland,  and  at  one  time  declared  his  inten- 
tion of  visiting  the  province  in  order  to  seek  relief  from 
the  financial  loss  and  the  humiliating  embarrassment  in 
which  he  was  placed  as  a  consequence  of  his  inability  to 
answer  business  and  social  inquiries  made  by  parties  in 
England.3  For  a  long  time  he  desired  that  Lloyd  would 
resign,  but  from  fear  of  offending  such  an  influential 
person,  refrained  from  asking  him  to  do  so.  It  is  not  im- 
probable that  the  proprietor  was  kept  from  visiting  the 
province  by  fear  of  his  unpopularity.  Instead  of  doing 
this,  he  sought  to  improve  the  organization  of  the  agent's 
business,  and  made  him  accountable  to  a  board  of  revenue. 
This  brought  about  the  much  desired  resignation  of  Lloyd. 
The  proprietor  also  strove  to  get  what  he  could  from  the 
province  by  ordering  the  sale  of  his  manors  and  reserved 
lands.  This  three-fold  movement  began  in  1760,  when 
instructions  were  sent  to  Lloyd  to  purchase  or  build,  with 
the  advice  of  the  governor,  a  house  to  be  called  the  office 

1  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  137  et  seq. 

2  Ibid.,  Vol.  II,  p.  62  et  seq.,  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  208,  215  et  seq.,  241,  257, 
316,  375,  382. 

•Iftitf.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  273. 


LAND  AND  THE  LAND  OFFICE  67 

of  the  receiver  general.  In  this  office  he  was  directed  to 
put  all  counterparts  of  leases  of  manors  and  reserved 
lands,  all  bonds  and  agreements  with  quit-rent  farmers, 
all  plans  of  manors  and  reserved  lands,  and  all  ac- 
counts of  stewards,  tenants,  and  rents  ;  to  have  the 
terms  of  manors  and  reserved  lands,  leases,  and  fees  for 
surveying  published  in  every  county,  so  as  to  prevent 
any  imposition  by  stewards ;  to  oblige  the  naval  officers 
to  render  account  on  September  29  of  each  year  ;  and  to 
submit  his  own  accounts  to  the  auditing  of  the  board  of 
revenue.1  As  usual  Lloyd  was  slow  to  comply  with  his 
instructions,  and  it  was  nearly  six  years  before  the  build- 
ing for  the  office  was  completed  :  but  after  the  first  audit- 
ing of  his  accounts  he  resigned.  His  resignation,  however, 
was  no  immediate  gain  ;  for  the  proprietor's  appointment 
of  his  own  intimate  friend,  the  renegade  Bennet  Allen,  as 
his  successor,  only  showed  how  unfit  the  proprietor  was  to 
be  at  the  head  of  a  state,  and  how  undeserving  he  was  of 
the  respect  of  the  people.  Yet  Allen  did  not  long  serve 
as  agent.2 

In  1766,  the  year  in  which  the  building  for  the  receiver 
general's  office  was  completed,  the  board  of  revenue  was 
appointed  and  directed  to  inspect  Lloyd's  accounts  and 
make  regulations  for  his  office.  The  members  of  this 
board  were  the  governor,  commissary  general,  deputy 
secretary,  attorney  general,  and  judges  of  the  land  office. 
Its  membership,  therefore,  included  the  leading  public 
officers.  It  was  given  access  to  every  office  and  control 
over  every  officer  who  had  anything  to  do  with  the  land 
business  or  with  the  proprietor's  revenue.  It  was  in- 
structed to  furnish  the  proprietor  annually  with  an  exact 
detail  of  every  branch  of  his  revenue,  and  to  give  the  re- 
ward paid  for  each  service  of  every  officer.     In  executing 

1  Calvert  Papers,  No.  652.  2  Minutes  of  the  Board  of  Revenue. 


68  MARYLAND    AS    A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

its  instructions  the  board  audited  the  accounts  and  re- 
vised all  instructions  to  the  various  officers ;  among 
which,  when  revised,  were  instructions  under  thirty-three 
heads  to  the  agent,  under  twenty-three  heads  to  the 
deputy  surveyors,  under  sixteen  heads  to  the  receivers, 
under  fifteen  heads  to  the  judges  of  the  land  office,  under 
nine  heads  to  the  rent-roll  keepers,  besides  others  to  the 
examiner  general,  attorney  general,  commissary  general 
deputy  commissaries,  sheriffs,  clerks  of  the  provincial  and 
county  courts,  and  naval  officers.  When  revised  they 
were  sent  to  the  proprietor  for  his  approval,  together 
with  a  recommendation  that  a  new  commission  be  issued 
to  the  board  of  revenue  for  more  precisely  pointing  out 
its  duties  and  denning  its  powers.  The  board  met  three 
times  a  year,  and  must  have  exercised  an  effective  control 
not  only  over  the  private,  but  also  over  the  public,  rela- 
tions of  the  land  office.1 

Thus  far,  therefore,  it  appears  that  the  land  office  was 
chiefly  private  before  the  Revolution  of  1689 ;  that  during 
the  period  of  royal  government  there  was  a  more  marked 
division  of  it  into  public  and  private  relations  ;  and  that 
after  the  restoration  of  the  proprietary  government,  so  far 
as  private  relations  were  concerned,  it  fell  into  an  ex- 
tremely neglected  and  confused  condition.  But  so  alarming 
did  the  confusion  become,  that  the  proprietor,  and  more 
especially  his  uncle,  the  secretary  residing  in  England, 
was  aroused  to  effective  action  ;  and  by  the  shrewd  busi- 
ness energy  of  the  latter  the  proprietor's  well-organized 
control  threatened  again  to  become  supreme  in  every 
department  of  the  land  office.  Doubtless  such  a  threat 
was  one  of  the  chief  causes  of  provoking  the  final  and 
most  spirited  controversy  over  the  question  of  the  public 
and  the  private  nature  of  that  office.     But  attention  must 

1  Minutes  of  the  Board  of  Revenue. 


LAND   AND    THE   LAND   OFFICE  69 

be  given  to  the  development  of  the  public  relations  during 
the  last  period  before  an  account  of  that  controversy  can 
be  made  clear. 

It  has  been  seen  that  during  the  period  of  the  royal 
government  the  management  of  the  land  office  lay  chiefly 
with  the  secretary  ;  yet  the  agent  retained  the  less  public 
part  of  the  records  and  the  title  of  register  of  that  office. 
At  the  time  of  the  dispute  between  Governor  Hart  and 
Agent  Carroll  the  office  of  register  was  united  with  that 
of  the  secretary.  In  1717  Philemon  Lloyd,  the  deputy 
secretary,  appointed  Edward  Griffith  register  and  keeper 
of  the  land  records,  while  he  retained  for  himself  the 
power  of  granting  land  warrants  and  of  preparing  land 
grants.  Four  years  later  the  proprietor  constituted  Lloyd 
judge  of  the  land  office,  and  authorized  him  to  hear  and 
determine  differences  arising  between  contending  parties 
in  land  affairs  as  far  as  legally  he  might,  "  according  to 
right,  reason  and  good  conscience."1  In  1733  Edmund 
Jennings,  the  new  secretary  and  judge  of  the  land  office, 
received  a  set  of  instructions  under  nineteen  heads. 
According  to  those  instructions  he  was  to  receive  the 
assistance  of  the  chancellor  in  the  determination  of  all 
disputes  that  came  before  him  as  judge  of  the  land  office  ; 
he  was  not  to  permit  any  land  warrant  to  issue  until  the 
agent  or  the  chancellor  had  certified  in  writing  that  the 
purchase  money  had  been  paid  ;  he  was  annually  to  furnish 
the  rent-roll  keepers  with  a  record  of  all  lands  granted  ; 
he  was  to  give  the  county  clerks  directions  to  be  very 
exact  in  transmitting  to  the  agent  the  alienations  every 
year  ;  he  was  to  inform  the  attorney  general  with  respect 
to  any  surplus  land  ;  he  was  to  insert  in  every  grant  a 
proviso  that  the  grant  should  become  void  on  the  non- 
payment of  rent ;  and  to  the  discoverer  of  escheated  land 

i  Kilty,  p.  269. 


70  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

he  was  to  allow  one-third  the  value  thereof.1  From  1746 
to  the  end  of  the  proprietary  government  there  were  two 
judges  of  the  land  office,  which  had  become  detached  from 
that  of  the  secretary.  The  judge  was  always  commis- 
sioned as  judge  and  register,  but  he  always  appointed 
another  as  register.  After  the  creation  of  the  board  of 
revenue  an  appeal  lay  from  the  decision  of  the  judges  of 
the  land  office  to  that  board,  whereas  before  that  time  the 
appeal  was  to  the  governor,  either  as  such  or  in  the  char- 
acter of  chancellor. 

The  judges,  the  register  of  the  land  office,  and  the 
agent,  instead  of  the  surveyor  general  and  the  secretary, 
had  now  become  chief  officers  in  territorial  affairs ;  and 
the  method  of  acquiring  title  to'  land  had  become  quite 
different  from  what  it  had  been  in  the  first  period.  In 
the  later  years,  when  a  person  desired  to  obtain  a  grant 
of  some  vacant  land  he  applied  to  the  agent,  who,  upon 
such  person's  paying  down  the  purchase  or  caution  money, 
gave  him  an  order  to  the  judges  of  the  land  office  for  a 
common  warrant.  Whereupon  the  register  of  the  land 
office  made  out  such  warrant,  which,  when  signed  by  the 
judges  and  stamped  with  the  official  seal,  was  directed  to 
the  surveyor  general.  In  pursuance  of  this  warrant  the 
deputy  surveyor  of  the  county  in  which  the  land  lay  sur- 
veyed the  land  and  returned  to  the  examiner  general  a 
certificate  of  survey  describing  the  situation  of  the  land 
and  the  bounds  thereof.  After  the  examiner  general  was 
satisfied  that  the  description  had  been  properly  made,  and 
that  every  part  of  the  certificate  was  in  due  form,  he 
endorsed  it  and  returned  it  to  the  land  office.  After  a 
patent  had  been  prepared  and  the  chancellor  had  passed 
the  same  by  signing  his  name  and  ordering  the  great  seal 
of  the  province  to  be  affixed  to  it,  the  patentee  might  take 

i  Kilty,  pp.  232-234. 


LAND    AND    THE   LAND   OFFICE  71 

it  out  of  the  office.  Then,  in  December  following,  the 
judges  of  the  land  office,  the  surveyor  general,  the  deputy 
surveyor,  the  examiner  general,  and  the  chancellor  made 
out  their  several  accounts  against  the  patentee  for  fees 
due  to  them  ;  which  fees  the  sheriff  was  directed  to  col- 
lect in  the  summer  following. 

If  a  person  applied  for  land  that  was  cultivated  by  some 
one  who  had  no  right  thereto,  or  that  was  contiguous  to  a 
tract  which  he  already  possessed,  he  had  first  to  petition 
the  judges  of  the  land  office  for  a  special  warrant  to  sur- 
vey the  particular  tract  or  parcel,  or  he  petitioned  to 
resurvey  the  tract  he  was  already  possessed  of,  and  to  add 
thereto  the  contiguous  vacant  lot.  The  special  warrant 
or  warrant  for  resurvey  might  then  be  issued,  signed,  and 
sealed  after  the  same  manner  as  a  common  warrant,  and 
directed  to  the  deputy  surveyor,  who,  after  the  survey, 
returned  to  the  examiner  general  the  certificate  giving  a 
particular  account  of  the  improvements.  After  the  cer- 
tificate had  been  passed  by  the  examiner  general  and  re- 
turned to  the  land  office,  the  petitioner  carried  it  to  the 
agent  to  whom  he  paid  the  caution  or  purchase  money  and 
what  was  demanded  for  improvements.  The  sum  paid 
was  endorsed  by  the  agent  on  the  certificate,  after  which 
a  patent  was  granted  as  in  case  of  a  common  warrant.1 

Although  it  is  evident  that  the  organization  and  admin- 
istration of  the  public  side  of  the  land  office  were  system- 
atic and  regular,  and  gave  general  satisfaction,  the  same 
cannot  be  said  of  the  private  side ;  and  the  representatives 
of  the  people  sometimes  either  felt  that  they  had  cause  for 
complaint  or  else  were  jealous  of  their  rights  and  asked  for 
more  publicity.  Notice  has  already  been  taken  of  the  gov- 
ernor's granting  the  request  of  the  lower  house  for  an 
account  of  the  proprietor's  quit-rents.     In  1729  the  lower 

1  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  II,  pp.  404-406. 


72  MARYLAND    AS   A    PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

house  resolved  that  it  was  a  grievance,  and  of  dangerous 
consequence  to  the  people  that  the  conditions  of  plantation 
on  which  they  held  their  estates  were  not  made  public.1 
In  1740  the  committee  on  grievances  reported  that  the 
agent's  commission  had  not  been  recorded.  Both  com- 
mittee and  lower  house  held  that  it  ought  to  be,  on  the 
ground  that  the  office  of  agent  was  a  public  one  with  re- 
spect to  the  people  and  their  interests,  and  that,  if  the 
commission  were  not  recorded,  they  could  not  be  certain 
of  receiving  due  credit  for  payments  made  by  them  to  dis- 
charge their  rents  and  other  dues.2 

In  1729,  upon  complaint  raised  in  the  lower  house 
against  the  power  exercised  by  Philemon  Lloyd  as  judge 
of  the  land  office,  that  house  resolved  itself  into  a  commit- 
tee of  the  whole  to  examine  into  the  charges,  and  sent  for 
all  papers,  records,  and  persons  necessary  to  throw  light 
on  the  affair.  After  its  examination  this  committee  found 
that  Lloyd,  upon  petition  and  entry  of  caveats,  had  heard 
and  determined  several  controversies  concerning  the  grant- 
ing of  land.  It  also  found  that  when  a  person  had  ob- 
tained a  land  warrant  and  paid  the  necessary  dues,  his 
patent  might  be  stayed  by  the  entry  of  a  caveat  against  the 
granting  of  the  patent  until  the  parties  had  been  heard  be- 
fore Lloyd,  unless  such  caveat  were  withdrawn,  or  the 
party  entering  the  same  neglected,  upon  summons  or 
notice,  to  appear.  Although  the  house  did  not  approve 
of  such  large  judicial  power  being  in  the  hands  of  one 
man  entirely  dependent  on  the  lord  proprietor,  yet,  when 
it  found  that  such  had  been  the  custom  from  the  earliest 
time,  it  voted  to  make  no  further  inquiry.3 

The  animosity  of  the  lower  house  with  respect  to  the 
land  office  was  most  thoroughly  aroused  in  1770  at  the 

1L.  H.  J.,  August  5,  1729.  2  lhid^  July  23,  1740. 

*Ibid.,  July  24,  30,  1729. 


LAND    AND   THE    LAND    OFFICE  73 

very  time  when,  through  the  work  of  the  board  of  revenue, 
the  proprietor's  control  of  the  land  office  seemed  to  be 
growing  strong  again.  Moreover,  it  was  the  time  when 
the  feeling  of  the  lower  house  was  bitter  against  the  mem- 
bers of  the  board  of  revenue  because  those  members  were 
also  the  leading  officers  of  the  government,  and  because, 
as  the  lower  house  claimed,  they  were  becoming  indepen- 
dently rich  and  powerful  by  receiving  too  large  fees.  After 
the  law  regulating  fees  had  expired,  the  judges  of  the 
land  office  instructed  their  clerk  to  continue  to  charge  ac- 
cording to  the  old  regulation.  As  a  consequence  of  follow- 
ing such  instruction,  the  lower  house  committed  the  clerk 
to  prison.  In  order  to  effect  his  release  the  governor 
prorogued  the  Assembly  on  the  day  following  his  commit- 
ment. Later  in  the  same  month  he  first  published  a 
paper  for  the  regulation  of  fees  in  the  land  office,  and  then 
issued  a  proclamation  for  the  regulation  of  all  other 
officers'  fees.  He  made  this  distinction,  as  he  afterward 
stated,  because  he  regarded  the  judges  and  register  of  the 
land  office  as  the  private  agents  of  the  proprietor,  rather 
than  public  officers. 

Such  a  course,  pursued  by  the  governor  after  the  lower 
house  had  sent  the  clerk  of  the  land  office  to  prison,  pro- 
voked a  lively  debate.  The  lower  house  went  so  far  as 
to  assert  that  the  lord  proprietor  had  no  right  to  dispose 
of  his  vacant  lands  upon  terms  different  from  his  former 
proclamations,  nor  to  settle  the  fees  paid  for  services  per- 
formed in  the  land  office.1  Furthermore,  with  respect  to 
the  public  or  private  nature  of  that  office,  the  house  thus 
expressed  its  view  to  the  governor:  "A  question  of 
momentous  concern  to  the  people  of  this  province  may 
arise,  whether  the  land  office  is  a  public  or  private  office? 
.  .   .    The   land   office,   sir,   is   the   public    repository   of 

i  L.  H.  J.,  November  21,  1770. 


74  MARYLAND    AS   A   PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

the  first  and  most  necessary  evidence  of  every  man's 
title  to  his  real  estate  in  this  province ;  the  whole  records 
have  been  made  up,  so  far  as  we  can  trace,  at  the  expense 
of  the  people.  These  records  have  been  considered  as 
public  records,  kept  under  securities  appointed  by  acts 
of  assembly;  and  office  copies  are  constantly  received 
and  admitted  as  evidence  by  the  courts  of  justice.  It  very 
much  concerns  the  landholders  in  this  province,  to  know 
by  what  tenure  they  hold  their  estates ;  if  they  have  no 
right  to  recur  to  the  land-office  records  and  have  copies 
but  at  the  will  of  his  Lordship  or  on  the  terms  his  Lord- 
ship may  be  pleased  to  allow  them,  they  indeed  are  in  all 
cases,  where  copies  are  necessary  to  evidence  their  titles, 
only  tenants  at  the  will  of  the  proprietor,  and  those  neces- 
sary copies  may  be  withheld  till  the  proprietor  receive 
the  profit  of  another  sale."1 

The  governor  conceded  that  in  so  far  as  the  land  office 
was  the  repository  of  the  muniments  of  the  tenants'  estates, 
it  was  a  public  office,  and  the  people  of  Maryland  were 
entitled  to  have  access  to  it  as  well  as  to  other  offices. 
But  he  held  that  the  lord  proprietor  had  the  clearest 
right  to  dispose  of  his  real  estate  on  such  terms  as  he 
saw  fit,  the  clearest  right  to  direct  the  formal  observances 
used  in  making  titles  to  his  grants,  and  the  clearest  right 
to  settle  the  fees  paid  for  services  performed  in  the  land 
office.2 

The  controversy,  remaining  unsettled,  was  only  lost 
sight  of  in  the  great  struggle  with  the  mother  country. 
Had  the  proprietary  government  continued  longer,  Gov- 
ernor Eden,  a  social  favorite  with  winning  ways  and 
political  tact,  would  doubtless  have  delayed  the  final  and 
complete  defeat  of  the  lord  proprietor.  As  it  was,  before 
the  overthrow  came,  the  indications  were  strong  that  the 

i  L.  H.  J.,  November  22,  1771.  2  Ibid.,  November  30,  1771. 


LAND    AND   THE   LAND   OFFICE  75 

proprietary  land  —  the  lord's  demesne . —  was  soon  to  dis- 
appear, and  that  the  proprietor's  right  to  escheat  was  to  be 
lost.  The  manorial  system  for  the  large  tenants  had  long 
since  been  abandoned.  Governor  Eden  had  conceded  that 
the  land  office  was  public  in  nature  with  respect  to  the 
custody  of  the  records.  The  question  of  public  or  private 
control  in  acquiring  title  was,  therefore,  about  the  only 
one  yet  remaining  to  be  solved. 


CHAPTER   II 

TERRITORIAL   REVENUE 

All  territorial  revenue  was  the  proprietor's  private 
income  and  was,  of  course,  feudal  in  nature.  Even  dur- 
ing the  period  of  royal  government  such  revenue  con- 
tinued to  be  paid  to  the  proprietor  or  his  agents.  A  great 
part  of  it  did  not  circulate  in  the  province  after  it  had 
been  collected,  but  was  sent  to  the  proprietor  in  England. 
The  rates  of  it,  from  the  most  important  sources,  were 
from  time  to  time  increased  as  much  as  the  proprietor 
thought  expedient. 

The  people  felt  that  too  much  money  was  drained  out 
of  the  province  to  enrich  a  non-resident.  On  several 
occasions  they  sought  information  as  to  the  amount  of 
that  revenue,  or  some  branches  of  it.  They  contended 
that  the  rates  of  it,  when  once  fixed,  should  remain 
unchanged  except  with  their  consent.  They  sometimes 
complained  that  the  farmers  or  receivers  of  certain 
branches  of  it  were  extortionate.  And  as  the  feudal 
system  was  gradually  outgrown  in  the  mother  country, 
they  endeavored  to  eliminate  the  most  objectionable  sources 
of  such  revenue. 

The  most  important  sources  were  the  purchase  money 
paid  for  either  vacant  or  improved  land,  quit-rents,  aliena- 
tion fines,  ferry  money,  and  port  duties. 

At  the  beginning,  one  hundred  acres  of  land  were 
granted  to  or  for  any  person,  between  the  ages  of  sixteen 

76 


TERRITORIAL   REVENUE  77 

and  sixty,  who  came  and  settled  in  the  province.  But  it 
was  only  a  few  years  before  the  amount  granted  on  those 
conditions  was  reduced  to  fifty  acres.  In  the  year  1683 
the  proprietor  ceased  to  grant  any  land  whatever  merely 
on  condition  of  settlement,  and  demanded  that  a  price  at 
the  rate  of  two  hundred  pounds  of  tobacco  for  every  hun- 
dred acres  should  be  paid,  as  the  condition  of  a  grant. 
The  next  year  that  rate  was  raised  to  two  hundred  and 
forty  pounds  of  tobacco,  and  it  has  already  been  seen  how, 
during  the  period  of  royal  government,  the  rate  of  the 
year  1684  came  to  be  doubled.1  In  the  year  1717  the  rate 
was  changed  to  forty  shillings  sterling  per  hundred  acres  ; 
and  in  the  year  1738  it  was  raised  to  £5  sterling  per  hun- 
dred acres,  which  was  the  rate  existing  at  the  time  the 
proprietary  government  was  overthrown. 

In  the  year  1744  the  committee  on  grievances  com- 
plained that  the  purchase  money  for  vacant  land  in  Mary- 
land was  £5  sterling  per  hundred  acres,  whereas  in  Vir- 
ginia it  was  only  ten  shillings  for  the  same  quantity.  This 
committee  was  also  keenly  conscious  of  the  fact  that  in 
Virginia  such  revenue  remained  in  the  country,  while  in 
Maryland  it  passed  out  from  the  circulation  within  the 
province.2  From  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century 
there  had  existed  a  feeling  that;  the  terms  on  which  the 
proprietor  granted  land,  when'once  fixed,  should  continue 
unchanged. 

Escheated  land,  always  including  what  improvements 
had  been  made  upon  it,  was  sold  either  to  the  discov- 
erer of  it  at  two-thirds  of  its  estimated  value,  or  it  was 
disposed  of  at'  a  public  sale  to  the  highest  bidder,  and 
the  discoverer  was  given  one-third  of  the  amount  thus 
received.3 

In  1764  the  proprietor   directed   that  his  manors  and 

1  See  supra,  p.  62.  2L.  H.  J.,  May  25,  1744.  8  Kilty,  p.  234. 


78  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

reserved  lands  should  be  sold  at  a  price  not  less  than 
£50  sterling  per  hundred  acres.  But  in  1766  his  instruc- 
tions for  the  sale  of  such  lands  directed  that  they  should 
be  sold  to  the  highest  bidder,  provided  the  bid  was  equal 
to  £30  sterling  per  hundred  acres  for  what  was  unculti- 
vated, or  £100  sterling  per  hundred  acres  for  what  had 
been  cultivated  and  improved.1 

The  quit-rent  reserved  in  grants  due  in  1633  was  regu- 
larly twenty  pounds  of  good  wheat  for  every  hundred 
acres,  but  it  was  increased  in  the  grants  due  the  follow- 
ing year.  In  1642  the  quit-rent  for  future  grants  was 
changed  to  two  shillings  for  every  hundred  acres.  In 
1658  the  proprietor  gave  instruction  that  the  quit-rent 
reserved  on  every  grant  of  a  manor  should  in  the  next 
year  be  increased  to  four  shillings  sterling  for  every  hun- 
dred acres  ;  and  in  1660  he  gave  instruction  for  a  like 
increase  to  be  reserved  on  other  grants.2  But  Fendall's 
rebellion  broke  out  in  1659,  and  even  after  its  suppression, 
such  an  opposition  to  the  government  continued  that  the 
quit-rent  of  two  shillings  sterling  remained  unchanged.3 

However,  in  the  year  1669,  came  another  instruction 
from  the  proprietor  directing  that  the  quit-rent  be  in- 
creased.4 The  next  year  the  right  of  voting  at  an  elec- 
tion of  members  of  the  lower  house  was  taken  from 
such  freemen  as  did  not  possess  at  least  fifty  acres  of 
land,  or  a  visible  personal  estate  worth  £40  sterling. 
After  such  restriction  of  suffrage,  but  in  only  a  few 
cases  before  it,  were  the  quit-rents  increased  to  the  four 
shillings  rate. 

The  first  session  of  Assembly  that  was  called  after  an 

1C.  R.,  February  21,  1766. 

2  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1636  to  1667,  pp.  458,  459. 

8  Land-office  Records. 

4  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1667  to  1687-88,  p.  55. 


TERRITORIAL    REVENUE  79 

election  had  been  held  under  the  new  regulation  of  the 
suffrage  passed  an  act  imposing  an  export  duty  on  tobacco 
of  two  shillings  per  hogshead.  One-half  of  that  duty 
was  to  be  given  to  the  proprietor  as  a  recompense  for  the 
heavy  expense  he  had  incurred  in  founding  the  colony, 
provided  he  accepted  good  tobacco  at  twopence  per 
pound,  in  payment  of  his  quit-rents  and  alienation  fines. 
The  market  value  of  tobacco  during  the  continuance  of 
that  act  seldom  exceeded  one  penny  per  pound  —  so  the 
twelvepence  per  hogshead  was  by  no  means  a  straight 
gift.  The  act  was  to  continue  during  the  life  of  the  pro- 
prietor, Cecilius  ;  and  it  was  later  continued  during  the 
life  of  his  successor,  Charles.  Even  after  the  overthrow 
of  the  proprietary  government  in  the  year  1689,  the  twelve- 
pence  were  given  to.  the  proprietor.  But  the  Assembly, 
after  the  royal  government  had  been  established,  asked  in 
return  for  the  twelvepence  that  the  conditions  of  planta- 
tion, which  were  in  force  before  the  revolution,  should 
remain  unchanged,  or,  at  least,  not  be  made  less  favorable 
than  those  in  Virginia.1 

On  February  20,  1714-15,  Charles,  the  second  proprie- 
tor, died,  and  his  immediate  successor,  Benedict  Leonard 
Calvert,  survived  him  only  two  months.  Wherefore,  in 
April,  1715,  Charles,  the  son  of  Benedict  Leonard  Calvert, 
became  fourth  proprietor.  In  the  same  year,  1715,  a  law 
was  made  to  enlarge  the  size  of  tobacco  hogsheads  nearly 
one-fourth  ;  and  an  offer  of  a  duty  of  eighteen  pence  per 
hogshead  was  at  the  same  time  made  to  the  new  proprie- 
tor, on  condition  that  he  would  continue  to  accept  payment 
for  his  quit-rents  and  alienation  fines  in  tobacco  at  two- 
pence per  pound.2  The  offer  was  refused,  and  the  next 
year  it  was  reported  that  the  proprietor  and  his  guardian 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1687-88  to  1693,  p.  361. 
2U.  H.  J.,  May  30,  1716. 


80  MARYLAND    AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

had  leased  his  rents  for  six  years  to  Henry  Darnall  for 
£300  sterling  and  sixty-seven  thousand  pounds  of  tobacco 
per  annum.1  The  Assembly  preferred  to  give  the  proprie- 
tor a  duty  of  two  shillings  per  hogshead,  as  a  full  equivalent 
for  both  the  quit-rents  and  alienation  fines,  rather  than 
give  the  sums  stated  in  the  lease  to  Darnall.  Accordingly, 
Darnall  gave  up  the  lease,  the  proprietor  accepted  the  two 
shillings  offer,  and  the  terms  of  that  offer  were  inserted 
in  a  law  which  was  continued  in  force  by  successive  revi- 
vals until  1733. 

Such  a  law  did  away  with  the  expense  of  keeping  up 
the  rent-rolls,  which,  in  1716,  were  estimated  at  ten  thou- 
sand pounds  of  tobacco  per  annum  ;  and  it  otherwise  much 
decreased  the  expense  of  collecting.  It  must  also  in  time 
have  proved  beneficial  to  the  country  by  its  encouragement 
of  the  raising  of  other  products  than  tobacco.  Yet  each 
party  to  the  agreement  soon  came  to  think  or  to  fear  that 
the  other  had  too  good  a  bargain.  Thus,  while  the  law 
was  before  the  lower  house  for  its  first  revival,  in  1720, 
that  body  acknowledged  its  advantages,  but  was  ill  at  ease 
because  it  felt  that  the  proprietor  had  the  better  oppor- 
tunity to  make  a  comparison  between  the  value  of  the 
rents  and  the  income  from  the  two  shillings  duty.2  While, 
on  the  other  hand,  in  1726,  Governor  Charles  Calvert,  a 
relative  of  the  proprietor,  informed  the  Assembly  that  in 
his  opinion  the  income  from  the  two  shillings  duty  did  not 
exceed  one-half  the  gross  value  of  the  quit-rents  and  aliena- 
tion fines  if  paid  according  to  the  terms  of  the  grants  ;  and 
that  nothing  but  the  proprietor's  tender  regard  for  his 
tenants  could  induce  him  to  consent  to  a  longer  continu- 
ance of  the  law.3 

The  following  year,  Benedict  Leonard  Calvert,  a  brother 

i  U.  H.  J.,  July  24,  1716.  2  L.  H.  J.,  April  8,  1720. 

9 Ibid.,  July  14,  1726. 


TERRITORIAL   REVENUE  81 

of  the  proprietor,  became  governor.  The  unprosperous 
times,  owing  to  the  bad  condition  of  the  tobacco  trade, 
continued ;  and  the  opposition  to  the  proprietor  was 
increasing,  this  being  due  largely  to  the  bitter  contro- 
versy over  the  question  of  the  extension  of  English  statutes 
to  Maryland.  The  governor's  health  was  miserable ;  he 
felt  that  the  people  were  getting  control  of  the  govern- 
ment, and  he  wished  to  avoid  an  increase  of  trouble.  As 
the  time  for  the  fourth  revival  of  the  law  which  granted 
the  equivalent  for  quit-rents  and  alienation  fines  drew 
near,  in  1729,  he  wrote  how  jealous  the  people  were  grow- 
ing because  they  thought  the  proprietor  had  too  good  a 
bargain,  while  the  proprietor  continued  to  hold  that  the 
quit-rents  due  according  to  the  terms  of  the  grants  vastly 
exceeded  the  equivalent.  The  governor  thought  there  was 
an  error  in  computation  on  both  sides,  and  prayed  for  a 
continuance  of  the  law.  He  held  that  the  people  could 
not  find  an  easier  way  to  pay  their  rents,  that  the  law  was 
especially  favorable  to  the  poor,  and  that  its  encourage- 
ment of  husbandry  was  a  great  benefit  to  so  young  a  coun- 
try. He  thought  that  the  rent-rolls  would  not  amount 
to  more  than  X6000  sterling  per  annum,  and  if  it  could 
be  collected,  a  great  allowance  should  be  made  for 
charges  and  losses  in  collection.  "  But  alas,"  he  con- 
cluded, "they  cannot  be  collected.  There  is  not  money 
enough  here  to  be  got  to  make  regular  payments  from 
time  to  time,  so  that  your  officers  must  take  corn,  wheat, 
beef,  pork,  tobacco,  or  some  commodity  of  the  country, 
the  conversion  whereof  into  money,  and  from  money  into 
bills,  must  be  a  vexatious,  expensive,  and  almost  an  endless 
and  insuperable  task."1 

The  law  was  revived  in  1729  for  three  years  as  usual ; 
but  in  1732  it  was  revived  for  one  year  only  ;  and  in  1733 

1  Calvert  Papers,  No.  2,  pp.  72,  73. 


82  MARYLAND   AS    A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

the  bill  for  reviving  it  failed  to  pass  in  the  lower  house 
by  a  vote  of  twenty-one  to  twenty-six.1  The  delegates 
from  the  city  of  Annapolis  and  the  four  western  counties 
—  those  least  adapted  to  tobacco  culture  —  gave  seventeen 
of  the  twenty-six  negative  votes.  Such  a  vote,  therefore, 
would  seem  to  indicate  that  the  general  opposition  to  the 
proprietor  or  his  government  was  already  much  the 
strongest  in  the  more  newly  settled  parts  of  the  province, 
otherwise  the  opposition  to  the  bill  would  have  been 
expected  to  come  from  the  tobacco-producing  counties. 

Before  the  expiration  of  the  law,  Samuel  Ogle,  a  more 
able  and  successful  administrator  than  Benedict  Leonard 
Calvert,  had  become  governor.  The  controversy  over 
English  statutes  had  been  adjusted.  Moreover,  the  pro- 
prietor, by  a  visit  to  the  province  at  that  time,  seems  to 
have  strengthened  his  position.  So,  although  the  diffi- 
culty of  revising  the  rent-rolls  and  the  trouble  in  collect- 
ing the  rents  were  doubtless  great,  yet  it  was  the  people 
that  soon  expressed  regret  for  the  loss  of  the  equivalent. 
After  an  election  of  a  new  lower  house  of  Assembly,  that 
house,  in  1735,  complained  of  the  great  scarcity  of  money 
in  circulation  with  which  to  pay  the  rents,  and  asked  the 
upper  house  to  join  with  them  in  an  address  to  the  pro- 
prietor concerning  another  equivalent.2  That  address, 
prepared  in  the  lower  house,  was  an  humble  confession  of 
the  mistake  that  had  been  made,  and  is  a  clear  representa- 
tion of  the  situation  at  the  time  it  was  written.  It  is 
therefore  here  inserted. 

"  We  acknowledge  with  the  deepest  sense  of  gratitude 
that  the  agreement  which  your  Lordship  condescended  to 
enter  into  with  your  tenants  to  raise  a  duty  on  tobacco  in 
lieu  of  your  quit-rents  and  alienation  fines  was  a  very 
great  ease  to  them,  and  nothing  could  have  been  more  to 

i  L.  H.  J.,  April  3,  1733.  2  Ibid.,  April  15,  1735. 


TERRITORIAL   REVENUE  83 

their  advantage  than  a  continnance  of  that  agreement 
which  your  Lordship  and  our  present  Governor  on  your 
behalf  was  pleased  to  offer,  and  which  the  Assembly, 
through  a  mistaken  notion  of  the  country's  interest,  re- 
fused to  accept  of. 

"  The  difficulty  which  the  people  labor  under  now  they 
are  obliged  to  pay  their  money  according  to  the  tenor  of 
their  grants  far  exceeds  what  could  have  been  imagined 
or  foreseen,  and  must  of  course  increase  in  proportion  to 
the  scarcity  of  money  in  the  country  and  will  prove  very 
detrimental  if  not  ruinous  to  many  of  the  inhabitants  of 
this  province.  To  avert  which  evils  we  are  obliged  thus 
humbly  to  apply  to  your  Lordship  and  to  beseech  you  to 
commiserate  the  unhappy  condition  to  which  your  ten- 
ants will  certainly  be  reduced  and  to  accept  of  a  sum  of 
money  to  be  raised  in  the  best  and  easiest  manner  it  can 
be  by  the  legislature  in  lieu  of  your  quit-rents  and  alien- 
ation fines,  and  that  your  Lordship  will  be  pleased  to  give 
instructions  to  His  Excellency  the  Governor  or  directions 
in  such  other  manner  as  your  Lordship  shall  think  fit  con 
cerning  this  important  affair."  1 

The  next  year  an  offer  from  the  lower  house  of  an  ex- 
port duty  of  two  and  a  half  shillings  per  hogshead,  as 
an  equivalent,  was  rejected  by  the  upper  house  ;  and  a 
little  later  another  offer  from  that  house  of  £4000  sterling 
per  annum,  although  agreed  to  by  the  upper  house,  was 
refused  by  the  proprietor.  Eight  years  later  the  lower 
house  asked  the  governor  to  submit  to  the  proprietor  its 
offer  of  two  and  a  half  shillings  per  hogshead  for  seven 
years ; 2  and  when,  in  the  following  year,  the  governor 
made  known  the  proprietor's  refusal  of  that  offer,  the  lower 
house  asked  what  the  proprietor  or  the  governor  judged 
a  reasonable  equivalent,  and  requested  that  an  account  of 

iL.  H.  J.,  April  23,  1735.  2  Ibid,,  May  26,  1744. 


84  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

his  annual  receipts  from  quit-rents  be  laid  before  them. 
Whereupon  the  governor  stated  that  the  proprietor 
thought  no  equivalent  reasonable  under  £5000  sterling 
per  annum;  and  in  response  to  the  repeated  request  of 
the  lower  house  he  gave  it  the  desired  account.1  A  bill 
for  raising  the  £5000  sterling  per  annum  then  passed 
both  houses.  But  the  governor,  as  he  had  threatened, 
withheld  his  assent  to  it  as  well  as  to  other  favorite  bills 
of  the  lower  house,  because  no  bill  had  been  passed  pro- 
viding a  fund  for  arms  and  ammunition.2  Such  was  the 
last  attempt  that  appears  in  the  records  to  agree  upon  an 
equivalent. 

The  proprietor  must  have  felt  that  no  equivalent  in  the 
form  of  a  fixed  annuafl  sum  could  be  agreed  upon  that 
would  be  advantageous  to  him  ;  and  it  is  probable  that  he 
intimated  that  he  might  accept  an  equivalent  of  £5000 
sterling  with  no  other  end  in  view  than  to  keep  under 
control  an  opposition  that  had  been  rather  violent  since 
1739.  His  most  reliable  and  most  able  supporter  in  the 
province,  Daniel  Dulany,  wrote  in  1736  :  "lam  persuaded 
that  when  all  the  lands  under  grant  in  the  Province  are 
brought  to  the  rent-roll  that  the  quit-rents  will  amount 
to  about  £8000  sterling  per  annum,  besides  alienation 
fines  which  must  increase  and  can  never  decrease."  3  The 
proprietor  stated  that  the  -raising  of  an  equivalent  might 
lay  too  heavy  a  burden  on  the  tobacco  trade.4  Experi- 
ence had  taught  him  that,  even  if  an  equivalent  were 
agreed  upon  for  a  term  of  years,  it  would  not  be  advisable 
for  him  to  save  the  expense  of  keeping  up  the  rent-rolls. 
He  knew  that,  so  long  as  the  granting  of  land  continued, 
his  income  from  quit-rents  would  increase,  while,  also,  he 

iL.  H.  J.,  August  28,  Septeraber3,  5,  10,  11,  1745. 

2  Ibid.,  September  24  and  28,  1745. 

s Dulany  Papers.  *L.  H.  J.,  April  20,  1736. 


TERRITORIAL   REVENUE  85 

felt  that  as  the  people  gradually  became  reconciled  to 
paying  according  to  the  tenor  of  the  grants  the  difficulties 
and  expense  of  collecting  would  decrease. 

In  1733  the  quit-rent  to  be  reserved  in  future  grants 
was  raised  to  ten  shillings  for  every  hundred  acres  ;  five 
years  later,  when  the  purchase  money  per  hundred  acres 
was  raised  from  four  shillings  to  £5  sterling,  the  quit- 
rent  was  reduced  to  four  shillings,  but  in  1753  the 
proprietor  again  gave  instruction  that  it  be  restored  to 
ten  shillings.  The  governor  held  that  the  ten  shillings 
rate  was  too  high,  whereupon,  the  next  year,  the  proprie- 
tor left  it  with  the  governor,  agent,  and  judges  of  the 
land  office  to  reduce  it  if  it  seemed  advisable ;  and  the  rate 
thereafter  seldom  exceeded  eight  shillings  for  every  hun- 
dred acres. 

Nothing  appears  in  the  records  with  respect  to  aliena- 
tion fines  previous  to  the  year  1658,  when  the  conditions 
of  plantation  issued  in  that  year  required  that  upon  the 
alienation  of  any  land  to  be  granted  to  a  tenant  there 
should  be  paid  to  the  proprietor  a  fine  equal  to  one  year's 
rent  for  the  same  land.  If  the  alienation  were  not  duly 
recorded  and  the  required  fine  paid  within  one  month 
thereafter,  the  alienation  was  to  be  void. 

But  the  attempt  to  enforce  such  a  provision  caused  con- 
siderable difficulty,  especially  during  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century ;  and  as  early  as  the  eve  of  the  Revo- 
lution of  1689  a  list  of  grievances  appears  to  have  been 
headed  with  a  charge  that  officers  made  illegal  demands 
in  receiving  alienation  fines.1  After  the  expiration  of  the 
law  which  provided  the  equivalent  for  quit-rents  and 
alienation  fines,  the  lower  house  raised  an  effective  oppo- 
sition to  paying  the  alienation  fine  on  land  devised ; 2  and 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1684  to  1692,  p.  203. 
2L.  H.  J.,  May  28,  1739. 


86  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

in  1742  the  proprietor  directed  that  his  agent  and  re- 
ceivers should  not  take  any  fine  on  or  for  any  land  which 
had  been  aliened  by  devise.1  In  the  case  of  all  other 
alienations,  however,  the  proprietor  seemed  determined  to 
preserve  his  right. 

In  1760  he  complained  that  his  income  from  alienation 
fines  was  notoriously  trifling.  As  a  consequence,  he  gave 
instruction  that  in  future  grants  a  clause  should  be  in- 
serted which  was  intended  to  provide  that,  whenever  the 
alienation  fine  was  not  paid  within  two  months  after  it 
became  due,  not  only  should  the  grant  be  void,  but  the 
proprietor  might  enfeoff  the  land  described  therein  to 
others.  Further,  the  governor  and  the  upper  house  were 
asked  to  endeavor  to  secure  an  amendment  to  the  law  for 
the  conveyance  of  land  whereby,  before  the  recording  of 
the  deed,  the  payment  of  the  alienation  fine  should  be 
required.  Secretary  Calvert,  the  proprietor's  uncle,  rec- 
ommended, as  the  best  way  to  settle  the  controversy  over 
alienation  fines,  that  a  case  or  two  of  that  kind  should  be 
brought  in  the  provincial  court,  or  that  a  bill  be  filed  in 
Chancery,  and  that,  if  necessary,  appeal  be  made  to  the 
king  in  Council.2 

Daniel  Dulany,  Jr.,  the  ablest  lawyer  in  the  province, 
held  that  the  clause  which  the  proprietor  asked  to  have 
inserted  in  his  future  grants  would  not  answer  the  end 
designed  so  as  to  revest  the  land  in  the  proprietor  upon 
the  non-payment  of  the  alienation  fine.  The  prudent 
Governor  Sharpe  was  of  the  opinion  that  to  vary  at  that 
late  day  the  form  of  the  condition  in  the  grants  relative  to 
lands  reverting  to  the  proprietor  for  the  non-payment  of  the 
alienation  fine,  might  be  said  by  the  opposition  to  proceed 

1 C.  R.,  October  20,  1742 ;  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  II,  p.  503 
et  seq. 

2  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  143. 


TERRITORIAL   REVENUE  87 

from  a  consciousness  that  the  old  conditional  clause  of 
forfeiture  was  really  defective.1  But  while  Dulany  is 
reported  to  have  represented  that  the  legislative  provision 
for  requiring  the  payment  of  the  alienation  fine  was  un- 
necessary —  on  the  ground  that  the  Chancery  Court  had 
sole  cognizance  in  such  matters,  —  Governor  Sharpe  feared 
that  if  he,  as  chancellor,  were  to  give  his  decision  in  a  case 
of  that  kind,  there  might  follow  an  uprising  of  the  anti- 
government  party  when  the  feeling  should  spread  that  he 
was  not  at  liberty  to  give  a  decree  against  the  proprietor. 
After  two  years  of  effort,  therefore,  the  passage  in  the 
lower  house  of  a  compromise  bill  was  secured ;  and 
there  the  controversy  over  alienation  fines  seems  to  have 
ended. 

In  Maryland,  the  long  narrow  bay,  and  the  numerous 
rivers,  over  which  there  was  long  delay  in  building  con- 
venient bridges,  made  it  highly  desirable  that  social  and 
commercial  intercourse  should  be  facilitated  by  well-regu- 
lated ferries  properly  adapted  to  the  transportation  of  men, 
wagons,  horses,  and  cattle ;  and  as  the  population  increased, 
the  earnings  of  ferrymen  might  have  been  considerable. 
But  a  disagreement  of  proprietor  and  people,  first  arising 
in  1741,  with  respect  to  ferry  licenses,  caused  the  regula- 
tion of  ferries,  and  all  conveniences  relating  to  that  means 
of  transportation,  to  remain  grievously  defective. 

Legislative  activity  for  providing  the  province  with 
ferries  began  as  early  as  1638,  and  twenty  years  later 
every  county  court  except  that  of  Kent  County  was 
directed  by  act  of  assembly  to  select  some  place  within  its 
jurisdiction  for  keeping  a  ferry,  and  to  assess  the  county 
for  the  purpose  of  providing  a  boat  and  paying  a  ferryman. 
Although  that  law  was  to  continue  but  three  years,  and 
was  not  revived,  yet  to  the  county  courts  was  left  full  con- 

1  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  203  et  seq. 


88  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

trol  over  ferries  until  1741.  But  it  was  at  that  very  time 
that  the  remote  western  districts  of  the  province  had  just 
begun  to  develop  rapidly.  In  that  year  the  proprietor, 
Charles  Calvert,  authorized  his  agent  to  select  suitable 
places  for  ferries,  ordered  that  no  one  should  keep  a  ferry 
without  a  license,  stated  for  what  services  the  boats  should 
be  fit,  and  fixed  the  rates  which  ferrymen  might  charge. 
For  the  license,  when  first  obtained,  and  for  its  renewal 
each  year,  a  fixed  sum  of  money  was  to  be  paid  to  the 
agent  for  the  proprietor's  private  use.  But  soon  after 
such  action  became  known,  the  committee  on  grievances 
made  complaint  against  the  license  money  that  was  de- 
manded, and  stated  that,  although  the  proprietor  had 
fixed  the  rates,  yet  ferrymen  charged  whatever  they 
pleased,  and  that  frequently  their  charges  were  exorbitant. 
Further,  the  committee  stated  that  in  Virginia  ferries 
were  regulated  by  acts  of  assembly,  and  that  the  deter- 
mining of  ferrymen's  charges  by  the  proprietor  was  most 
arbitary  and  illegal,  and  tended  to  alienate  the  affections 
of  the  people  from  his  government.1  The  next  year  a  bill 
was  introduced  in  the  lower  house  for  the  regulation  of 
ferries.  But  in  the  meantime  such  a  clamor  had  been 
raised  against  the  proprietor's  attempt  to  regulate  them, 
and  to  obtain  money  from  ferry  licenses,  that  he  gave  up 
the  attempt ;  and  it  is  probable  that  it  was  on  account  of 
his  doing  so  that  the  ferry  bill  failed  to  pass  in  the  lower 
house  by  a  vote  of  twenty-nine  to  fifteen. 

Charles  Calvert  never  renewed  that  attempt ;  but  in  the 
year  1753,  his  successor,  Frederick,  ordered  that  the  gov- 
ernor, the  judges  of  the  land  office,  and  the  secretary 
should,  if  possible,  lease  the  several  ferries  to  the  county 
courts  for  a  lease  fine,  and  an  annual  rent.2  Just  what 
was  the  outcome  of  that  instruction  does  not  appear.     But 

i  L.  H.  J.,  June  12,  1741.  *  C.  R.,  1753. 


TERRITORIAL    REVENUE  89 

two  years  later  Governor  Sharpe  spoke  unfavorably  of  the 
proprietor's  conduct  with  regard  to  ferries  ;  and  until  the 
final  overthrow  of  the  proprietary  government  some  ferries 
were  kept  by  order  of  the  county  courts,  and  others  by 
private  persons.1  In  the  case  of  the  former  the  justices  of 
the  county  court  levied  a  sum  of  tobacco  on  the  county  for 
paying  the  ferryman,  and  the  ferry  was  free  for  the  inhabi- 
tants of  that  county.  In  the  case  of  those  kept  by  private 
persons,  the  keeper  demanded  of  passengers  whatever  he 
pleased  ;  and  what  he  demanded  had  to  be  paid  or  convey- 
ance was  refused.  The  need  of  a  regulation  of  ferries 
must  have  kept  increasing.  "  But,"  said  the  governor, 
"  the  people  will  never  vest  the  proprietor  with  the  right 
and  power  of  granting  licenses,  and  he  will  not  pass  a 
regulation  bill  without  it."  2 

The  power  "  to  make,  erect,  and  constitute  "  ports,  to 
have  all  "  rights,  jurisdictions,  liberties,  and  privileges  " 
with  respect  to  such  ports,  and  to  "  have  and  enjoy  the 
taxes  and  subsidies  payable  "  in  the  same,  was,  by  the  char- 
ter, given  to  the  proprietor.  The  first  act  of  assembly 
that  imposed  a  port  duty  was  passed  in  the  year  1650,  and 
was  entitled,  "An  order  for  the  reedifying  of  the  fort 
of  St.  Inigoes."  Its  purpose  was  clearly  defence.  It 
provided  for  strengthening  a  fort  that  had  already  been 
constructed  at  the  port  of  St.  Inigoes.  Toward  defray- 
ing the  expense,  it  levied  a  duty  of  one  half-pound  of 
powder  and  two  pounds  of  shot,  or  the  equivalent  in 
value,  on  every  ton  burden  of  every  vessel  trading  with 
the  province,  but  not  belonging  in  it,  that  had  a  deck  or 
a  deck  flush  fore  and  aft.  Although  the  duration  of  the 
act  was  not  limited,  it  was  superseded  in  the  year  1661  by 
another  which  was  entitled  :  "  An  act  for  port  duties  and 

1  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  II,  p.  509. 

2  Ibid.,  Vol.  I,  p.  236. 


90  MARYLAND   AS    A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

masters  of  ships."  The  first  act  was  a  mere  ordinance  of 
the  General  Assembly ;  the  second  act  was  a  law  requir- 
ing the  lord  proprietor's  assent.  In  the  second  act,  while 
the  duty  was  raised  to  one  half-pound  of  powder  and 
three  pounds  of  shot,  the  idea  of  defence  was,  to  say  the 
least,  much  less  prominent.  Again,  by  the  first  act,  the 
duty  was  to  be  employed  by  the  governor  for  the  use  of 
the  fort,  and  for  such  other  necessary  and  general  uses 
as  he  should  think  fit;  while  by  the  second  act  it  was 
directed  that  the  duty  should  be  paid  to  the  lord  proprie- 
tor and  his  heirs,  and  nothing  was  said  about  the  use  for 
which  it  was  to  be  employed. 

As  there  arose  no  urgent  need  of  fortifying  the  ports 
of  Maryland,  the  proprietor  received  the  payment  of  the 
duty,  in  money,  for  his  own  private  use.  For  many  years 
the  people  offered  little  or  no  complaint.  But  at  the  time 
of  the  Revolution  of  1689  they  declared  that  the  legis- 
lators who  passed  the  act  had  intended  that  the  proprietor 
should,  with  the  income  from  that  duty,  make  secure 
the  several  ports  and  harbors,  by  erecting  forts  and  pro- 
viding them  with  ammunition.  Accordingly,  the  first 
Assembly  that  sat  under  the  royal  government  passed  an 
act  which  changed  the  name  of  the  duty  from  port  duty  to 
tonnage  duty,  and  gave  a  part  of  it  for  the  support  of  the 
council  of  state,  and  the  remainder  for  purchasing  arms 
and  ammunition.  But  the  proprietor  laid  his  claim  before 
the  home  government,  and  when  the  question  came  to 
the  solicitor  general  for  decision  he  decided  that  the 
act  of  the  year  1661  gave  the  duty  to  the  proprietor  for 
his  private  use.  The  crown,  therefore,  disallowed  the 
act  and  directed  that  the  said  duty  should  be  paid  to  the 
proprietor.1 

No  further  dispute  arose  about  the   matter   until   the 

i  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1687-88  to  1693,  pp.  421,  422,  454. 


TERRITORIAL   REVENUE  91 

year  1739,  when  a  party  appeared  that  seemed  determined 
to  make  every  possible  charge  against  the  proprietor  and 
his  government.  The  pretence  of  that  party  with  respect 
to  the  tonnage  duty  was  that  by  a  repealing  act  of  the 
year  1704  the  law  imposing  it  had  been  repealed.1  It  is 
true  that  the  repealing  act  of  1704  did  declare  all  laws 
that  had  ever  been  made  in  the  province  before  that  year 
to  be  repealed,  save  those  mentioned  in  an  excepting 
clause  ;  and  in  that  clause  was  no  mention  of  the  tonnage 
act.  But  there  was  also  in  that  repealing  act  this  saving 
clause,  viz,  "  Saving  always  to  all  and  every  person  and 
persons  whatever  was  his  and  their  right  and  benefits 
which  he  or  they  had  by  the  former  acts  of  Assembly." 
Therefore,  on  the  same  basis  as  that  of  the  solicitor  gen- 
eral's decision  in  the  year  1692,  the  proprietor  was  still 
entitled  to  his  tonnage  duty.  Nevertheless,  until  the 
overthrow  of  the  proprietary  government  the  lower  house 
continued  to  deny  his  right  to  it.  In  1761,  when  the 
Board  of  Trade  asked  for  copies  of  laws  in  force,  that 
house  would  not  agree  to  defray  the  expense  of  preparing 
them  unless  the  editor  would  leave  out,  with  one  other  act, 
the  act  for  tonnage  duty.2  But  the  fair-minded  Governor 
Sharpe  and  Daniel  Dulany,  Jr.,  with  his  distinguished 
legal  talent,  never  gave  a  sign  of  doubting  the  proprietor's 
right  to  that  duty.3 

Although  in  matters  of  territorial  revenue  the  more 
important  trouble  arose  over  questions  involving  the  pro- 
prietor's right  to  it,  yet,  as  might  be  expected,  the  collec- 
tion of  it  gave  rise  to  occasional  difficulties.  However, 
so  little  trouble  arose  out  of  the  collection  of  that  payable 
to  the  naval  officers  at  the  ports  or  that  due  as  purchase 

*L.  H.  J.,  June  5,  1739. 

2  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  II,  p.  489. 

3  Ibid.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  304  ;  Dulany  Papers. 


92  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

money  for  land,  before  the  warrant  was  issued,  that  it  is 
unnecessary  to  take  notice  of  it ;  and  as  almost  no  ferry 
money  was  ever  paid  to  the  proprietor,  the  collection  of 
quit-rents  and  alienation  fines  alone  remains. 

By  the  terms  of  the  grants  the  rents  were  to  be  paid 
semi-annually  at  St.  Mary's.  As  already  stated  the  gov- 
ernor and  the  secretary,  aided  by  the  attorney  general 
and  the  sheriffs,  attended  to  the  collection  of  them  for 
many  years  after  the  founding  of  the  colony.  In  1671 
each  sheriff  was  instructed  to  prepare  for  his  county  a 
rent-roll  in  which  were  entered  the  names  of  all  persons 
who  possessed  land  within  the  county,  the  name  and 
quantity  of  every  parcel  of  land,  and  what  quit-rent  each 
tenant  was  annually  to  pay.1  Six  years  later  the  county 
clerks  were  ordered  under  severe  penalties  for  disobedience 
properly  to  report  every  alienation  in  order  that  the  rent- 
rolls  might  be  kept  correct  and  the  alienation  fines  be 
collected.2 

In  1676  the  duty  of  superintending  the  collecting  was 
taken  from  the  governor  and  the  secretary  by  the  appoint- 
ment of  two  receivers  and  collectors  of  all  the  proprietor's 
revenue.3  They  were  given  power  to  appoint  deputies, 
and  required  to  direct  the  sheriffs  and  all  other  deputy 
collectors  to  give  an  account  to  them  once  a  year.  After 
his  appointment  in  1684,  an  officer,  usually  known  as 
agent  and  receiver  general,  had  the  chief  management  in 
collecting  the  proprietary  revenue.  But  in  1733  the 
governor  was,  to  a  limited  extent,  associated  with  him. 
Finally,  in  1766,  a  building  for  the  agent's  office  was 
completed,  all  officers  under  the  agent  were  made  more 
strictly  and  regularly  accountable  to  him,  and  the  whole 

i  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1667  to  1687-88,  pp.  91,  92. 
2  Ibid.,  1671  to  1681,  pp.  159,  160. 
•Ifeid.,  pp.  119,  120. 


TERRITORIAL   REVENUE  93 

business  was  subjected  to  what  became  known  as  the  board 
of  revenue.1 

From  1733  on,  immediately  under  the  agent  were  two 
rent-roll  keepers  appointed  by  the  governor  —  one  for  the 
eastern  and  one  for  the  western  shore.  Under  the  rent- 
roll  keeper,  a  farmer  or  receiver  of  the  rents  for  each 
county  was  also  chosen  by  the  governor.2 

The  rent-roll  keepers  received  five  per  cent  of  the  net 
value  of  the  rents.  The  rents  were  usually  farmed,  but 
in  a  few  counties  they  were  collected  by  receivers.  In 
1733  the  farmer  received  twenty-five  per  cent  while  the 
receiver  was  paid  ten  per  cent.  In  1736  the  farmer's  rate 
was  reduced  to  twenty  per  cent ;  in  1753  it  was  reduced 
to  fifteen  per  cent  ;  and  two  years  later,  when  the  sheriffs 
were  appointed  farmers,  the  per  cent  was  reduced  to  ten. 
But  in  1765,  when  the  proprietor  wished  to  have  the 
farmers'  rate  reduced  to  six  per  cent,  the  governor 
informed  him  of  the  difficulties  of  collection,  and  stated 
that  even  at  ten  per  cent  the  sheriff  regarded  it  as  a  bur- 
den of  his  office.3  The  next  year  the  board  of  revenue, 
not  satisfied  with  the  way  in  which  the  sheriffs  farmed, 
decided  to  take  the  work  out  of  their  hands  and  include 
two  of  the  small  counties  in  one  farm.4 

Before  the  Revolution  of  1689,  either  the  proprietor  was 
himself  present  in  the  province,  or  was  nearly  always 
represented  by  an  able  and  faithful  brother  or  son,  and  no 
serious  trouble  arose  with  respect  to  collecting  the  reve- 
nue. But  during  the  period  of  royal  government  much 
difficulty  from  that  source  was  encountered,  although  the 
proprietor  was  given  some  relief  by  the  crown  and  by  his 
faithful  agents.     With  the  restoration  of  the  proprietary 

1  Calvert  Papers,  No.  652  ;  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  375. 

2C.  R.,  June  18,  1733. 

8  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  213  et  seq.        4  Ibid.,  p.  375. 


94  MARYLAND    AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

government  little  difficult}?-  was  to  be  expected  so  long  as 
proprietor  and  people  agreed  upon  an  equivalent.  But 
after  the  termination  of  that  agreement  several  cases  of 
alleged  extortion  were,  in  1737,  investigated  by  the  lower 
house,  and  the  chief  charge  found  to  be  the  undervaluing 
of  foreign  coins  that  were  given  in  payment  for  the  rents.1 
Those  found  guilty,  after  being  condemned  at  the  bar  of 
the  house,  the  governor  was  asked  to  prosecute.  But 
there  was  doubtless  a  feeling  on  the  part  of  the  people  at 
that  time  that  a  great  amount  of  difficulty  in  collecting 
the  rents  would  cause  the  proprietor  to  agree  to  an  equiva- 
lent more  in  the  people's  favor.  However,  this  and  two 
other  investigations  of  a  similar  nature  indicate  that  the 
collectors  of  the  rents  were  much  restrained  from  imposing 
hardships  on  the  people  through  fear  of  being  called  to 
account  by  the  lower  house,  of  being  obliged  to  pay  fees 
to  officers  engaged  in  any  investigation  of  their  conduct, 
and  of  incurring  the  danger  of  a  regular  prosecution  by 
the  government.2 

In  the  struggle  between  proprietor  and  people  with 
respect  to  territorial  revenue,  it  is  therefore  clear  that  the 
proprietor  was  in  a  very  large  measure  successful  in  pre- 
serving his  rights  and  in  receiving  his  dues.  With  the 
exception  of  the  period  of  royal  government,  nearly  all 
controversies  as  to  right,  and  the  chief  complaints  against 
farmers  and  receivers,  arose  after  1735  ;  and  as  a  result 
of  all  controversies  and  complaints  the  proprietor  was 
not  only  not  obliged  to  give  up  any  large  source  of  reve- 
nue, but  the  rate  paid  for  collecting  it  was  reduced  one- 
half. 

Before  the  end  of  the  proprietary  government  came,  the 
net  annual  amount  of  the  territorial  revenue  probably 
exceeded  £  12,000  sterling.     The  strength  to  the  govern- 

i  L.  H.  J.,  May  4  to  May  21,  1737.  2  C.  R.,  June  7,  1748. 


TERRITORIAL.  REVENUE  95 

ment  available  from  so  large  an  income  might,  in  the 
hands  of  an  administrator  like  the  first  Lord  Baltimore, 
have  been  equal  to  all  the  opposition  which  arose  out  of 
the  proprietor's  territorial  relations ;  but  in  the  hands  of 
the  degenerate  Frederick,  who  was  more  interested  in  the 
revenue  than  in  the  government,  such  was  not  the  case. 


CHAPTER   III 

THE   ACTIVITY   OF   THE   LEGISLATIVE   ASSEMBLY   IN 
TERRITORIAL   AFFAIRS 

In  the  mediaeval  fief  the  legislative  Assembly  existed 
only  in  germ  ;  for  the  most  part  it  merely  assented  to 
what  the  lord  of  the  fief  proposed.  Its  full  development 
meant  equality  of  rights  and  privileges  in  the  eye  of  the 
law ;  the  rise  of  the  Assembly,  therefore,  meant  the  fall  of 
the  feudal  system.  Consequently,  special  attention  to 
the  part  which  the  Maryland  legislative  Assembly  played 
with  respect  to  territorial  affairs  may  be  expected  to  show, 
from  another  aspect,  the  decline  of  the  lord  proprietor's 
power. 

Until  after  the  Maryland  Assembly  had  sat  for  the 
second  time,  the  lord  proprietor  insisted  that  he  alone  had 
the  right  to  initiate  legislation.  Had  the  freemen  ac- 
knowledged that  right  to  be  vested  solely  in  him,  it  is 
highly  probable  that  the  sale  of  manors  would  have  been 
forbidden  by  law.  It  is  equally  probable  that  the  laws  of 
the  province  would  have  required  that  on  every  manor 
there  should  be  at  least  twenty  freemen,  that  fifteen  of 
them  should  be  trained  as  soldiers  and  kept  ready  for  the 
service  of  the  country,  and  that  the  lord  of  the  manor 
should  maintain  them  in  time  of  such  service.1     But  in- 

1  Calvert  Papers,  No.  1,  pp.  159,  164. 
96 


THE    LEGISLATIVE    ASSEMBLY  97 

stead  of  succeeding  in  thus  providing  the  land  system 
with  the  military  features  of  a  fief,  the  bills  containing 
those  requirements  failed  to  become  laws,  and  in  August, 
1638,  the  lord  proprietor  conceded  to  the  Assembly  the 
right  of  initiating  legislation.1  So,  at  the  very  outset, 
while  the  strong  prop  to  feudalism  failed  even  to  be  set 
up,  the  principal  obstruction  to  the  growth  of  the  Assem- 
bly's power  was  removed. 

From  the  year  1638  until  the  Revolution  of  1689,  the 
lord  proprietor's  control  over  the  legislative  Assembly  was 
still  sufficiently  strong  to  procure  some  legislation  in  sup- 
port of  his  territorial  jurisdiction.  Yet  such  legislation 
during  that  entire  period  consisted  in  little  more  than  in 
declaring  that  title  to  land  could  not  be  acquired  by  pur- 
chase from  the  Indians,  in  determining  how  soon  after 
the  issue  of  the  warrant  of  survey,  rent  should  begin,  and 
in  determining  how  long  land  might  be  left  deserted  — 
with  the  rent  unpaid  —  before  it  escheated  to  the  proprietor. 
During  the  same  period,  legislation  in  favor  of  the  people 
provided  that  quit-rents  and  alienation  fines  might  be 
paid  in  tobacco, —  for  that  provision,  however,  the  pro- 
prietor was  paid,  —  and  it  determined  the  fees  of  the 
surveyor  general.  An  attempt  of  the  lower  house  to 
procure  a  law  for  the  regulation  of  surveying  was 
unsuccessful.2 

During  the  period  of  royal  government  the  proprietor 
was  without  control  over  legislation,  except  in  so  far  as 
he  was  able  to  interest  the  crown  in  protecting  his  rights. 
Under  such  conditions  the  amount  of  legislation  with 
respect  to  territorial  affairs  was  not  large,  but  it  was  far- 
reaching  in  its  tendency,  and  all  against  the  proprietor. 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly, '  1637-38  to  1664, 
p.  31. 

2  Ibid.,  1666  to  1676,  pp.  23,  39,  85. 


98  MARYLAND   AS    A    PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

It  aimed  at  control  of  the  terms  on  which  land  should  be 
granted,  at  making  surveyors  accountable  to  the  people, 
and  at  making  regulations  for  surveying.  But  the  crown 
gave  the  people  no  encouragement  in  such  legislation  ; 
and  with  the  exception  of  an  unsatisfactory  law  for 
determining  the  bounds  of  estates,  little  had  resulted 
from  that  legislation  when  the  proprietary  government 
was   restored. 

Immediately  after  the  restoration,  sufficient  harmony 
existed  between  proprietor  and  people  to  enable  them  to 
agree  upon  a  full  equivalent  for  the  proprietor's  quit- 
rents  and  alienation  fines.  For  five  years  the  proprie- 
tor permitted  the  law  determining  the  bounds  of  estates 
to  continue  in  force.  The  former  of  these  laws,  as 
already  stated,  was  beneficial  to  both  proprietor  and 
people.  The  latter  was  both  detrimental  to  the  people's 
interests  and  encroached  on  the  proprietor's  jurisdiction. 
It  provided  that  the  settlement  of  controversies  over  the 
bounds  between  estates  should  be  taken  from  the  courts 
and  intrusted  to  commissions  appointed  by  the  governor 
and  council  for  each  county.  At  one  time  an  appeal  lay 
from  one  commission  to  another  ;  but  when  it  was  found 
that  upon  appeal  the  first  decision  was  usually  reversed, 
the  law  was  so  changed  as  to  dispense  with  the  second 
commission  for  hearing  appeals.  It  was  a  law  under 
which  a  man's  real  estate  was  too  frequently  at  the  dis- 
posal of  ignorant  and  interested  judges.  Could  the  lower 
house  have  had  its  own  way,  the  law  would  have  been 
made  still  more  injurious  by  providing  that  the  commis- 
sioners should  be  elected  annually  by  the  people  of  the 
county.1  The  arbitrary  procedure  of  the  commissioners, 
who  were  subject  to  no  control  or  regulation,  had  the 
effect,  it  was   claimed,  of   setting   aside  the  proprietor's 

i  U.  H.  J.,  May  6,  1718;  October  17  and  25,  1720. 


THE   LEGISLATIVE   ASSEMBLY  99 

rules  for  the  regulation  of  surveying  and  determining 
boundaries,  and,  consequently,  robbed  him  of  his  right  to 
surplus  land.  It  also  increased  the  difficulty  of  keep- 
ing up  the  rent-rolls.1  After  the  judge  of  the  land  office 
had  presented  to  the  proprietor  the  several  objections  to  the 
law,  he  disallowed  it,  in  1720,  on  the  ground  that  it  was 
repugnant  to  the  laws  of  Great  Britain  for  determining 
right  to  property.2  Thirteen  years  later  the  law  that 
gave  the  equivalent  for  quit-rents  and  alienation  fines 
was  suffered  to  expire. 

After  the  expiration  of  the  last  mentioned  law,  disaffec- 
tion between  landlord  and  tenants  increased.  Attempts  to 
agree  upon  another  equivalent  for  the  rents  and  fines  were 
unsuccessful.  The  farmers  and  collectors  of  rents  were 
charged  with  extortion.  The  question,  how  to  settle  dis- 
puted boundaries,  continued  to  be  a  troublesome  one.  Be- 
sides the  bills  for  giving  another  equivalent  for  the  rents 
and  fines,  a  bill  for  perpetuating  the  bounds  of  land  was 
several  times  considered  by  the  lower  house.  In  the  year 
1750,  that  house  ordered  such  a  bill  to  be  printed  in  the 
Maryland  G-azette.  It  proposed  that  each  parish  should 
be  divided  by  its  vestry  into  precincts,  that  at  least  two 
freeholders  should  be  appointed  for  each  precinct,  that 
those  freeholders  should  go  round,  or  procession,  every 
man's  land,  within  their  precinct,  once  every  four  years 
for  the  purpose  of  preserving  the  landmarks,  and  that 
after  a  man's  land  had  been  processioned  four  times  the 
boundary  thereof  should  not  be  altered.3  However,  the 
bill  never  became  a  law,  and  as  years  passed  the  need  of 
such  a  measure  disappeared. 

The  question  of  an  equivalent  and  that  of  boundaries 
between  estates  had   not   been   long  dropped,  when  the 

1  Calvert  Papers,  No.  2,  pp.  1-25.  2  U.  H.  J.,  July  19,  1721. 

3  Maryland  Gazette,  July  25,  1750. 


100  MARYLAND    AS    A    PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

alarm  created  by  General  Braddock's  defeat  caused 
Governor  Sharpe  to  disregard  the  lord  proprietor's  in- 
structions and  to  give  his  assent  to  an  act  of  assembly 
for  his  Majesty's  service  which  imposed  a  tax  of  one  shilling 
per  hundred  acres  on  all  the  proprietor's  manors  and  the 
leased  portions  of  his  reserved  lands.  The  tax  was  im- 
posed for  seven  years,  and  was  estimated  to  amount  to 
£80  sterling  per  annum. 

Only  two  years  later,  when  further  supplies  were  asked 
for  carrying  on  the  war,  the  lower  house  —  doubtless 
under  the  influence  of  the  Pennsylvania  assembly  —  at- 
tempted to  impose  a  tax  on  the  proprietor's  quit-rents. 
In  a  message  to  the  upper  house  on  that  subject,  they 
said  :  "  There  is  nothing  to  us  more  reasonable  than  the 
tax  on  that  part  of  the  Proprietor's  revenue  which  arises 
from  his  quit-rents,  and  it  is  by  no  means  less  just  because 
it  has  not  been  before  attempted  in  this  Province  or  estab- 
lished in  any  other  Colony.  If  it  is  just  and  right  in  itself, 
it  ought  to  be  done,  whether  the  governor  is  at  large  or 
is  restricted.  But  we  shall  never  presume  that  our  Lord 
Proprietor  would  give  any  instruction  for  preventing  a 
tax  on  his  estate  here  so  as  to  obstruct  grants  for  his 
Majesty's  service  and  the  security  of  his  own  estate  as 
well  as  ours  ;  but  on  the  contrary  would  on  all  occasions 
freely  contribute  equally  with  his  tenants  toward  the 
protection  of  his  own  and  their  property,  and  to  the 
support  of  the  common  cause  against  his  Majesty's 
enemies.  .  .  .  As  it  is  not  expressed  in  our  grants  that 
we  should  undertake  the  burthen  of  defending  ourselves, 
we  cannot  see  how  it  can  arise  from  the  nature  of  them 
or  be  a  consideration  in  them."1  When  the  lord  pro- 
prietor, the  governor,  and  the  upper  house  all  continued 
firm  against  the  persistent  and  repeated  attempts  to  tax 
!L.  H.  J.,  April  27,  1758, 


THE   LEGISLATIVE   ASSEMBLY  101 

those  rents,  the  lower  house  did  its  best  to  represent  the 
proprietary  government  in  an  unfavorable  light.1 

In  addition  to  actual  legislation,  the  lower  house  found 
that  by  passing  resolutions  or  by  mere  concurrence  in  the 
reports  of  its  committee  on  grievances  it  could  win  popular 
favor,  and  thus  influence  the  decisions  of  the  courts,  or  so 
alarm  the  proprietor  as  to  cause  him  to  yield.  For  example, 
in  the  year  1739,  in  response  to  the  proprietor's  proclama- 
tion with  respect  to  vacating  grants  containing  surplus 
land  and  encouraging  the  discovery  of  such  grants,  the 
lower  house,  with  but  one  dissenting  vote,  claimed  to 
conceive  that  such  a  course  of  the  proprietor  might 
"  prove  of  the  highest  and  most  pernicious  consequence 
to  the  quiet,  peace,  and  safety"  of  the  province- by  "en- 
couraging informers,  raising  and  propagating  litigious 
and  expensive  lawsuits,  dispossessing  families  of  their 
long-continued  tenures,  and  by  invading  property  of  the 
highest  nature."  Furthermore,  the  house  held  that  if  a 
stop  were  not  put  to  such  proceedings,  they  might  in 
time  "tend  to  the  utter  subversion  of  the  landed  estate 
of  the  good  people  of  the  province  for  which  they  and 
their  predecessors  had  honestly  paid  a  full  consideration 
to  his  Lordship  and  his  ancestors,  and  for  the  enjoyment 
of  which  in  quiet  and  security  they  left  their  native 
country,  risked  their  lives  amongst  a  heathen,  savage, 
merciless  people,  the  inclemencies  of  the  seas,  and  in- 
temperature  of  climate."2 

Such  reports  and  resolutions  frequently  had  more  effect 
than  the  proprietor's  proclamations  and  instructions  against 
which  they  were  usually  directed  ;  and,  as  it  was  through 
proclamations  and  instructions  that  the  proprietor  exercised 
his  jurisdiction,  the  fact  that  those  resolutions  had  so  much 

i  Portfolio  13,  Nos.  23,  24. 
3L.  H.  J.,  May  31,  1739. 


102  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

force  is  significant.  It  was  after  such  expression  of  feel- 
ing in  the  lower  house  that  the  proprietor  found  it  impos- 
sible to  secure  much  from  his  claims  to  surplus  lands,  to 
alienation  fines  on  lands  devised,  or  to  ferry  licenses.  It 
has  already  been  seen  how  that  house  contended  that  the 
terms  for  granting  land  should  be  published,  and  that  the 
proprietor  had  no  right  to  determine  the  fees  paid  for  ser- 
vices performed  in  the  land  office. 

If,  therefore,  the  actual  legislation  in  territorial  affairs 
continued  small,  it  nevertheless  appears  that  there  had 
been  awakened  among  the  people  a  longing  for  nearly  all 
those  rights  pertaining  to  land  that  are  exercised  by  a 
legislature  of  the  present  day ;  and  what  was  in  time  to 
be  the  outcome,  is  indicated  by  what  was  thought  and 
attempted  in  regard  to  escheat. 

In  1760  it  was  reported  that  crowds  of  people  from  all 
parts  of  the  province  gathered  around  the  provincial  court 
during  its  trial  of  a  case  in  which  the  whole  question  of 
escheat  was  at  stake ;  and  when  the  incompetent  and 
frightened  justices  seemed  strongly  disposed  to  yield  to 
popular  clamor,  that  proprietary  right  was  rescued  only 
with  great  effort  by  the  attorney  general.1  Nine  years 
later  Ex- Governor  Sharpe  advised  that  legislative  action 
be  attempted  in  order  to  prevent  a  complete  loss  of  that 
right.  He  stated  that  there  was  a  growing  feeling  that, 
whenever  it  could  be  shown  that  land  had  been  once 
regularly  granted  by  the  proprietor,  it  ought  never  to 
escheat  to  him,  though  it  were  impossible  satisfactorily 
to  trace  the  title  back  to  the  original  grant;  and  an  act 
of  parliament  against  latent  claims  of  the  crown  seemed  to 
favor  the  people.  He  therefore  proposed  that,  instead  of 
insisting  that  the  title  in  all  cases  should  be  traced  back 
to   the   original   grant,    a   compromise   should    be   made 

1  Portfolio  4,  No.  53. 


THE   LEGISLATIVE    ASSEMBLY  103 

with  the  lower  house  by  which  it  should  be  required 
only  where  the  grant  had  been  made  within  a  certain 
fixed  number  of  years ;  and  that  a  law  on  the  basis  of 
the  compromise  be  then  passed.1  It  is  not  improbable 
that  such  a  compromise,  as  well  as  other  similar  ones,  was 
prevented  only  by  the  many  controversies  and  the  final 
overthrow  of  the  proprietary  government  that  so  soon 
followed. 

1  Proprietary  Papers. 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE   INDUSTRIAL   DEVELOPMENT  » 

In  the  life  of  the  average  Maryland  colonist,  (£e  para- 
mount motive  force  was  decidedly  economic  or  industrial 
in  nature.  The  religious  spirit  was  weak;  the  moral 
standard  was  not  high.  For  the  first  one  hundred  years 
and  more,  not  only  was  the  training  of  the  intellect  griev- 
ously neglected,  but  life  was  further  narrowed  by  insuffi- 
cient social  intercourse  and  by  the  confinement  of  activity, 
in  great  measure,  to  the  ceaseless  labor  required  for  the 
cultivation  of  tobacco  on  the  sands  of  southern  Mary- 
land. 

It  was  this  very  narrow  view  of  life  that  caused  those 
people  to  prize  all  the  more  highly  their  rights  as  tenants. 
It  was  with  the  same  view,  and  hi  the  same  spirit,  that 
their  representatives  sought  in  the  legislative  Assembly 
to  protect  and  to  promote  their  economic  interests  in 
general.  Moreover,  the  location  of  the  estates,  the  great 
number  of  small  estates  as  against  a  far  less  number  of 
large  ones,  and  the  fact  that  the  government  officers 
were  paid  for  their  services  in  tobacco,  the  staple  com- 
modity, added  much  to  the  zealous  obstinacy  with  which 
industrial  questions  —  principally  those  relating  to  the 
tobacco  industry  —  were  fought  over  by  the  two  houses 
of  Assembly,  the  one  house  standing  up  for  the  proprie- 
tor, the  officers,  and  the  large  landholders,  the  other  house 
supporting  the  interests  of  the  great  body  of  small  land- 

104 


THE   INDUSTRIAL   DEVELOPMENT  105 

holders.  So  long  was  the  disagreement  continued  that 
a  successful  regulation  of  the  industry  had  not  yet  been 
made  when  the  larger  development  —  which  made  possible 
a  vigorous  political  life  and  increased  the  industrial  inde- 
pendence of  the  province  —  had  begun  to  make  rapid 
progress.  Side  by  side,  therefore,  with  the  controversies 
relating  to  the  proprietor's  territorial  rights,  the  industrial 
development,  or  questions  relating  thereto,  had  much  to 
do  in  determining  the  development  of  the  government. 

Exclusive  of  those  reserved  for  the  proprietor,  about 
one-half  of  all  the  Maryland  manors  lay  near  the  mouth  of 
the  Patuxent  or  the  Potomac,  and  not  far  from  St.  Mary's, 
the  early  seat  of  government.  Of  the  other  half,  a  large 
part  were  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  bay  along  the  banks 
of  the  Choptank,  the  Elk,  or  the  Chester.  Likewise,  for 
the  first  one  hundred  years,  most  of  the  simple  freeholds 
lay  along  the  shore  of  the  bay  or  fronted  some  river 
bank. 

The  usual  size  of  the  manor  was  from  1000  to  2000 
acres,  although  a  few  of  them  contained  5000  or  more  ; 
and  while  simple  freeholds  of  1000  acres  or  more  were 
not  rare,  yet  those  containing  less  than  400  were  by 
far  the  most  numerous.  Thus  of  1119  simple  free- 
hold grants  made  before  the  year  1663,  there  were 
60  of  1000  acres  or  more,  241  of  500  or  more,  778  of 
less  than  400,  and  389  of  less  than  200.  It  is  also  to 
be  especially  noted  in  this  connection  that  each  of  a 
comparatively  numerous  body  of  servants  received,  at 
the  expiration  of  his  term^of  service,  an  estate  of  only 
50  acres.  Moreover,  since  previous  to  1683  grants  were 
made  in  consideration  of  the  transportation  of  persons 
into  the  province,  the  size  of  the  estates  indicates,  in 
some  measure,  the  amount  of  labor  that  was  available  on 
each. 


106  MARYLAND   AS   A    PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

So  well  adapted  to  the  raising  of  tobacco  was  the  soil 
of  most  of  these  estates,  that  attempts  to  encourage  the 
raising  of  other  products  proved  largely  futile.  So  the 
quantity  of  tobacco  grew  with  the  increase  of  population ; 
while  the  ease  with  which  those  escaped  detection  who 
mixed  worthless  with  good  tobacco  lowered  the  quality 
and  created  for  the  Maryland  product  a  bad  reputation. 
Furthermore,  the  several  European  wars  at  times  endan- 
gered the  carrying  trade  and  decreased  the  demand.  As 
a  consequence,  the  price  of  tobacco  fell  from  three  pence 
per  pound  in  1649  till  the  product  became  a  drug  on  the 
market  in  1666 ;  and  because  of  the  obstacles  in  the  way 
of  a  proper  regulation  the  price  seldom  rose  above  a  penny 
per  pound  until  after  1747,  when  those  obstacles  were  at 
last  overcome. 

The  obstacles  referred  to  arose  from  the  fact  that  when 
the  supply  exceeded  the  demand,  or  when  the  means  of 
transportation  was  insufficient,  the  large  planter  had  a 
decided  advantage  over  the  small  planter.  For  since 
on  so  many  of  the  estates  there  was  a  place  at  which 
vessels  could  be  loaded,  the  province  remained  without 
any  central  market  within  its  borders.  Under  such  con- 
ditions the  tobacco  merchants  found  it  more  convenient 
to  load  their  ships  at  the  large  plantation  ports.  Or,  if 
the  difficulty  arose  from  insufficient  means  of  transporta- 
tion, the  large  planter  was  the  better  able  to  provide  him- 
self with  the  same  from  England.  Also,  when  it  seemed 
clear  that  the  welfare  of  all  demanded  that  the  production 
of  the  commodity  should  be  limited,  the  large  planter  was 
the  better  able  to  deny  himself  in  whatever  way  was 
thought  necessary  to  accomplish  the  desired  end.  Such 
conditions  naturally  encouraged  jealousy  on  the  part  of 
the  small  toward  the  large  planters. 

But   this   was   not   all.     The   principal  officers  of  the 


THE   INDUSTRIAL   DEVELOPMENT  107 

province  were  chosen  by  the  lord  proprietor  from  the 
holders  of  the  largest  estates.  Those  same  officers  con- 
stituted the  council  of  state  and  the  upper  house  of  the 
legislative  Assembly ;  and  they  were  paid  for  their 
official  services  in  tobacco.  From  1671  to  1715  the  pro- 
prietor was  paid  his  quit-rents  and  alienation  fines  in  the 
same  commodity.  Likewise,  a  perpetual  act  of  1702  re- 
quired that  the  clergy  should  be  paid  forty  pounds  of 
tobacco  per  poll.  Hence,  any  movement  for  the  purpose 
of  keeping  up  the  price  of  tobacco  affected  the  support  of 
the  government. 

It  is  true  that  the  members  of  the  lower  house  were 
themselves  quite  large  planters,  that  they  were  paid  in 
tobacco  for  their  service  in  Assembly,  and,  also,  that  most 
of  them  were  paid  in  the  same  commodity  for  service  as 
justices  of  the  county  court ;  yet  they  could  not  with 
impunity  disregard  the  wishes  of  that  numerous  constitu- 
ency of  small  planters. 

By  the  year  1662  the  problem,  the  solution  of  which 
the  above  circumstances  were  to  make  so  difficult,  had 
arisen  not  only  in  Maryland,  but  also  in  Virginia.  In 
the  following  year  commissioners  from  the  two  provinces 
met  in  response  to  instructions  from  the  crown,  in  order 
to  consider  propositions  for  limiting  the  production  of 
tobacco.  At  that  meeting  it  was  agreed  to  submit  to  the 
government  of  each  province  a  proposal  to  prohibit  the 
planting  of  tobacco  after  the  twentieth  of  June.1  But 
that  proposal  was  rejected  in  Maryland  because  it  was 
feared  that  an  agreement  on  such  terms  would  be  more 
favorable  to  the  southern  province. 

The  first  attempt  having  thus  ended  in  failure,  the 
governor  and  council  of  Virginia  urged  the  executive  of 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1636  to  1667,  pp.  476,  477,  479,  480, 
503-510. 


108  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

Maryland  to  give  its  support  to  a  bill  for  a  complete  ces- 
sation, for  one  whole  year,  from  planting  tobacco  in  Mary- 
land, Virginia,  and  Carolina.  By  appearing  in  person 
before  that  executive,  the  governor  and  council  of  Vir- 
ginia obtained  the  promise  of  what  had  been  refused 
when  asked  for  through  a  written  message  ;  and  in  the  year 
1667  the  governor  and  the  upper  house  of  Maryland  gave 
their  strongest  support  to  the  bill  providing  for  a  ces- 
sation during  that  year.  After  the  lower  house  had 
stated  that  it  believed  such  a  cessation  would  cause  the 
province  to  be  much  depopulated  and  had  refused  to  pass 
the  bill,  the  governor  requested  a  conference  between  the 
two  houses.  Although  the  conference  was  avoided  by 
the  lower  house,  on  the  ground  that  it  would  interfere 
with  its  freedom  of  debate,  the  several  objections  to  the 
bill  were  sent  to  the  upper  house  ;  and  after  they  had 
been  answered  the  bill  passed.1 

But  its  passage  caused  such  a  clamor  among  the  small 
planters  that  the  speaker  and  several  other  members  of 
the  Assembly  saw  fit  to  petition  the  lord  proprietor 
to  disallow  the  act.  The  prayer  of  that  petition  was 
granted,  and  when  the  Virginians  made  complaint  against 
the  lord  proprietor,  he  gave  the  crown  the  following 
reasons  for  his  disallowance  of  the  said  act  :  (1)  that 
while  the  act  was  favorable  to  the  ablest  planters,  "it 
tied  up  poor  men's  hands  from  working  out  their  neces- 
sary livelihood  ;  (2)  that  it  would  tend  to  compel  the 
poor  planter  to  enter  into  new  servitudes  to  the  more 
rich  to  gain  subsistence  ;  (3)  that  it  would  endanger  the 
peace  of  the  province  by  provoking  people  to  sedition.2 
Thus  ended  in  failure  the  first  vigorous  attempt   to  in- 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1666  to  1676,  pp.  66, 
109-113. 

3  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1667  to  1687-88,  pp.  5-9,  15-20. 


THE   INDUSTRIAL    DEVELOPMENT  109 

crease  the  price  of  tobacco  by  a  law  for  decreasing  the 
supply.  Another  such  attempt  was  not  made  until  more 
than  half  a  century  later. 

The  method  of  raising  the  price  by  improving  the 
quality  remained  to  be  tried.  Yet  to  accomplish  that  it 
was  necessary  to  pass  a  law  against  concealing  the  bad 
among  the  good.  And  to  enforce  such  a  law  it  was  nec- 
essary that  the  vast  number  of  places  of  shipment  should 
be  reduced  to  a  few  ports  duly  appointed  and  constituted 
as  such  by  a  recognized  authority  ;  and  that  an  efficient 
inspection  service  should  be  provided  at  each  of  those 
ports. 

With  the  exception  of  an  insufficient  law,  first  passed 
in  the  year  1657,  against  mixing  the  ground,  or  bottom, 
leaves  with  good  leaves,  and  against  making  second  crop 
tobacco,  no  action  was  taken  by  any  part  of  the  govern- 
ment to  preserve  the  quality  of  the  product  until  after 
the  failure  of  the  act  for  the  cessation  from  planting. 
But  very  soon  after  vetoing  that  act,  the  lord  proprietor, 
in  accordance  with  a  right  expressly  conferred  on  him  by 
the  charter,  instructed  the  governor  to  make,  erect,  con- 
stitute, and  appoint  ports.  In  response  to  that  instruc- 
tion, the  governor,  in  the  year  1668,  issued  a  proclamation 
which  limited  the  number  of  places  of  shipment  to  thir- 
teen, nearly  all  of  which  were  on  some  large  estate.  For 
shipping  from  any  place  other  than  one  of  the  thirteen, 
the  offender  was  to  suffer  the  penalty  of  one  year's  im- 
prisonment.1 A  similar  proclamation  was  issued  in  1669 
and  in  1671.  But  it  is  clear  that  those  proclamations  did 
not  well  serve  their  purpose  ;  and  in  the  year  1682  there 
was  passed  in  the  upper  house  a  bill  appointing  places 
for  ports.  The  bill  was  lost  that  year.  But  the  next  I 
year  after  the  lower  house  had  declined  to  pass  it,  that 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1667  to  1687-88,  pp.  31,  32. 


110  MARYLAND    AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

body  was  called  into  the  upper  house  and  there  so 
severely  reprimanded  by  the  lord  proprietor,  Charles 
Calvert,  that  the  bill  was  passed  the  same  day.1  Yet, 
although  that  bill  became  a  law  and  appointed  thirty 
places  as  ports,  it  was  of  no  lasting  force.  Besides,  there 
was  still  wanting  a  good  law  against  deceitful  packing. 
The  first  year  that  the  port  bill  was  introduced  an 
attempt  was  made  to  supply  that  want ;  and  the  upper 
house  passed  a  bill,  one  clause  of  which  read  as  follows  : 
"  That  no  planter  presume  to  false  pack  any  tobacco  by 
putting  therein  any  frost-bitten,  ground  leaves,  or  sec- 
onds, or  worse  tobacco  in  the  middle,  about  or  in  any 
part  of  the  hogshead  than  is  at  the  head  in  open  view, 
under  a  penalty  of  having  every  hogshead  of  tobacco  so 
false  packed  as  aforesaid  burnt  by  the  sheriff  or  other 
public  officer,  and  the  delinquent  also  to  forfeit  one  thou- 
sand pounds  of  tobacco  for  every  such  default,  one-half 
to  go  to  the  Right  Honorable  the  Lord  Proprietary,  the 
other  half  to  the  informer  who  should  sue  for  the  same."2 
For  more  than  two  weeks  the  lower  house  debated  the 
provisions  of  this  clause,  but  could  come  to  no  agreement. 
Consequently  the  tobacco  industry  was  suffered  to  lan- 
guish from  want  of  regulation. 

During  the  period  of  royal  government  not  only  was 
no  progress  made  toward  regulating  that  industry,  but 
the  poverty  and  distress  of  the  planters  were  increased  by 
the  European  wars  which  caused  the  closing  of  markets 
and  the  loss  of  tobacco  at  sea.  Only  a  few  years  after 
the  restoration  of  the  proprietary  government  the  declin- 
ing condition  of  the  tobacco  trade  created  serious  commo- 
tion.    For  it  appeared  that  while  Virginia  had  regulated 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1678  to  1683,  pp. 
488,  492. 

2  Ibid.,  pp.  261,  268,  288,  367. 


THE   INDUSTRIAL   DEVELOPMENT  111 

the  trade  so  as  to  advance  the  price,*  the  quality  of  the 
Maryland  tobacco  remained  unimproved.  An  act  of 
assembly  passed  in  the  year  1721  against  trash  and  for 
limiting  the  time  of  shipping  could  not  have  had  much 
effect ;  for  in  the  year  1730  the  governor  said,  "  Trash 
is  the  greatest  cancer  to  our  staple."1  There  was  such 
delay  in  preparing  it  for  market  that  it  lost  much  of  its 
scent,  freshness,  and  weight.  Then,  too,  the  common  means 
of  transporting  the  crop  from  the  place  of  growth  to  the 
port  of  shipment  was  by  the  slow  and  laborious  rolling  of 
hogsheads.  Justly,  therefore,  the  merchants  complained 
of  the  slavery  imposed  on  their  sailors  by  being  "  obliged 
to  roll  it  from  far  to  the  water  side."  Further,  in  the 
year  1726,  the  governor,  while  speaking  of  the  complaints 
of  the  merchants,  said  :  "  They  observe  that  their  ships 
lie  here  subject  for  many  months  to  the  injury  of  the 
worm,  their  sailors  undergo  such  fatigue  from  the  excess 
of  heat  and  labor,  that  if  not  lessened  in  number  they  are 
at  least  abated  in  their  ability  to  work  the  ships  home, 
and  that  their  ships  arrive  on  the  English  coast  in  a 
stormy  and  dangerous  season.  If  these  inconveniences 
attend  them  in  their  shipping,  they  of  course  entail  others 
on  us.  Leaky  ships  and  bad  weather  must  damage  our 
tobacco,  want  of  able  hands  endanger  the  loss  of  it ;  and 
although  it  arrives  in  safety,  yet  it  comes  to  a  late  mar- 
ket, which  is  generally  a  bad  one."2 

But  although  the  tobacco  industry  remained  in  such  a 
languishing  condition,  the  situation,  in  one  respect,  had 
changed  from  what  it  had  been  before  the  Revolution  of 
1689.  The  upper,  and  not  the  lower,  house  was  now  on 
the  defensive.  The  small  planters  and  the  lower  house 
had  become  eager  for  laws  designed  to  raise  the  price  of 
tobacco.     In  1726  the  governor  received   petitions  from 

»  L.  H.  J.,  May  21,  1730.  2  Ibid.,  October  10,  1726. 


112          MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

various  parts  of  the  province  complaining  of  the  low 
state  to  which  the  tobacco  culture  was  reduced,  and  desir- 
ing that  the  Assembly  might  be  convened  to  consider 
some  method  of  relief.  In  1728  it  was  proposed  in  a 
seditious  paper,  posted  up  in  Prince  George's  County, 
that  those  in  favor  of  a  tobacco  law  should  arm  themselves 
and  drive  the  Assembly  into  the  making  of  the  desired 
law.1  In  1730  the  lower  house  held  that  a  tobacco  act 
was  absolutely  necessary  to  save  the  country  from  ruin.2 
And  in  1732  despair  of  the  Assembly's  passing  the 
desired  law  induced  a  band  of  desperate  characters  to  cut 
up  tobacco. 

The  great  obstacle  to  the  needed  legislation  lay  in  the 
fact  that  the  lower  house  was  scarcely  less  eager  to  reduce 
the  fees  of  officers  and  the  dues  of  the  clergy  than  it  was 
to  save  the  tobacco  industry.  It  held  that  any  law  which 
was  designed  to  raise  the  price  of  tobacco  should,  in  fair- 
ness to  all,  diminish  the  quantity  to  be  paid  to  the  officers 
and  the  clergy.  In  1719  the  lower  house  succeeded  in 
having  the  fees  of  officers  reduced  about  one-fourth  ;  but 
an  attempt,  which  was  made  five  years  later,  to  reduce 
them  one-half  was  a  failure.  Fees  then  continued  with- 
out any  accepted  regulation  from  1725  to  1733,  when  the 
lord  proprietor's  proclamation  fixed  them  at  the  rates 
which  had  been  prescribed  by  the  law  of  1719.  The 
question  of  officers'  fees  thus  became  a  hindrance  to  the 
passage  of  a  good  tobacco  law  ;  for  so  long  -as  officers' 
fees  were  not  subject  to  regulation  by  the  Assembly,  the 
value  of  those  fees  was  almost  sure  to  be  increased  by  any 
law  that  advanced  the  price  of  tobacco. 

With  respect  to  the  dues  of  the  clergy  the  case  was 
at  this  time  quite  different.  The  loose  morals  of 
many  of  that  profession  had  roused  hostility  and  caused 

1  L.  H.  J.,  October  26,  1728.  2Ibid.,  May  25,  1730. 


THE   INDUSTRIAL   DEVELOPMENT  113 

general  dissatisfaction  with  the  perpetual  law  of  1702, 
which  gave  to  the  clergy  forty  pounds  of  tobacco  per  poll. 
Hence,  the  desire  to  defeat  that  law  was  doubtless  a 
strong  incentive  for  passing  an  act  of  assembly,  in  the 
year  1726,  which  would  limit  the  number  of  tobacco 
plants  and  at  the  same  time  reduce  the  nominal  dues  of 
the  clergy  one-fourth.  The  pretence  was  made  that  the 
real  value  of  those  dues  would  not  be  diminished  in  con- 
sequence of  such  a  law.  But  it  was  doubtless  a  just  com- 
plaint of  the  clergy  that  their  dues  were  usually  paid 
with  the  poorest  tobacco,  and  that  this  act  was  no  remedy 
for  that  evil.  Consequently,  it  became  necessary  for  the 
lord  proprietor  to  veto  the  act  in  order  to  prevent  the 
clergy  from  laying  the  matter  before  the  crown.1 

After  that  dissent,  the  situation  had  become  such  that 
for  the  lower  house  to  pass  a  law  designed  to  raise  the 
price  of  tobacco  would  have  been  too  much  like  a  victory 
for  the  lord  proprietor,  his  officers,  and  the  clergy.  It 
was  not  to  be  expected  that  anything  but  the  greatest  dis- 
tress would  make  the  great  majority  of  the  people  and  the- 
lower  house  submit  to  undergo  any  restraint  that  promised, 
less  advantage  to  them  than  to  the  lord  proprietor,  the= 
officers,  and  the  clergy,  especially  as  this  was  a  time  of  gen- 
eral antagonism  to  the  government.  That  distress,  however , 
had  become  alarming  in  1730  ;  and  in  response  to  the  many 
loud  clamors  for  a  tobacco  law,  an  act  was  passed  that  year 
which  was  similar  to  that  of  1726,  except  that  it  provided 
for  the  payment  in  grain  of  one-fourth  of  the  clergy's  dues. 
But  although  the  governor  urged  its  continuance,  that  act 
was  suffered  to  expire  at  the  end  of  one  year.  In  1732  a 
bill  for  preventing  the  exportation  of  trashy  and  unmer- 
chantable tobacco  failed  to  pass  the  lower  house  by  a  vote 
of  twenty-one  to  twenty-six.     Four  years  later  a  similar 

1  Perry,  Papers  relating  to  the  Church  in  Maryland,  pp.  262-283. 


114  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

bill  failed.  So  the  province  continued  without  any 
effective  tobacco  legislation.  In  addition  to  the  friction 
between  the  different  branches  of  the  legislature,  the  few 
laws  that  had  been  made  were  so  imperfect  and  so  inade- 
quate that  their  results  gave  no  encouragement  for  fur- 
ther legislation.  Those  laws  had  been  too  much  directed 
toward  limiting  the  quantity  and  not  enough  toward 
improving  the  quality. 

But  while  Maryland  was  despairing  of  relief  from  any 
legislation,  Virginia  kept  improving  her  tobacco  laws, 
the  final  outcome  of  which  was  not  only  to  furnish 
Maryland  with  an  example,  but  also  to  bring  that  crisis 
upon  her  which  is  so  clearly  presented  in  a  letter  to  the 
proprietor  written  by  Daniel  Dulany  in  1743,  and  also,  a 
little  later,  in  an  address  to  the  proprietor  which  Dulany 
prepared  for  the  governor  and  council.  In  that  address 
it  was  stated  that  Maryland  tobacco  had  lost  its  reputa- 
tion to  such  a  degree  that  merchants  were  ordering  their 
agents,  settled  in  Maryland,  to  remove  to  Virginia.  "To 
which  place,"  the  representation  continued,  "  we  expect 
all  or  most  of  the  tobacco  buyers  will  soon  resort ;  because 
that  although  they  give  a  much  greater  price  there  than 
they  could  buy  here  for,  yet  they  are  sure  of  purchasing 
better  tobacco  there  than  here.  Great  numbers  of  the  in- 
habitants have  been  used  to  purchasing  clothing  and  other 
necessaries  of  which  they  will  soon  become  destitute. 

"  By  the  advice  from  home,  the  French  who  usually 
purchased  great  quantities  of  our  leaf  tobacco,  decline 
buying  any  of  it,  so  long  as  they  can  be  provided  with 
Virginia  tobacco.  .  .  .  We  have  but  too  much  reason  to 
apprehend  that  unless  our  staple  is  speedily  put  under 
some  effectual  regulation,  the  Virginians  will  get  the 
whole  trade  into  their  hands,  wherein  they  have  already 
made  a  considerable  progress. 


THE    INDUSTRIAL   DEVELOPMENT  115 

"  If  the  difference  we  have  mentioned  arose  from  any 
difference  of  soil  or  climate,  it  would,  perhaps,  be  in  vain 
to  attempt  any  regulation,  or  to  hope  that  any  that  could 
be  made  would  prove  effectual  ;  but  that  is  so  far  from 
being  the  case  that  we  have  really  the  advantage  both  in 
soil  and  climate,  and  the  remedy  of  all  the  difficulties 
under  which  we  labor  is  within  our  reach. 

"  Our  unhappy  situation  arises  from  this,  that  our 
people  are  under  no  kind  of  restraint,  and  the  generality 
of  them  are  unwilling  to  be  under  any  which  may  have  the 
least  appearance  of  lessening  the  quantity  of  tobacco  they 
make  ;  under  which  general  denomination  all  manner  of 
trash,  though  unfit  for  anything  but  manure,  is  included, 
and  so  intermixed  with  what  is  really  merchantable  as  to 
render  the  whole  of  little  value  ;  and  in  many  instances 
has  been  so  far  from  clearing  the  proprietors  anything 
near  what  it  cost  them,  that  it  has  brought  them  in  debt, 
and  given  Maryland  tobacco  in  general  a  very  bad  char- 
acter at  all  the  European  markets." 

The  representation  next  accounted  for  the  failure  of  all 
past  attempts  to  remedy  the  evil,  and  then  concluded  :  — 

"  Sometimes  a  short  crop  occasioned  by  the  unseasonable- 
ness  of  the  weather,  or  other  accidents,  has  occasioned  the 
rise  of  tobacco,  which  occasioned  too  many  to  think  that 
not  only  a  providential  but  the  only  remedy  that  could  be 
reasonably  hoped  or  expected ;  which  notion,  however 
wild  and  extravagant,  has  contributed  a  good  deal  to  fix 
an  aversion  in  the  generality  of  the  common  people,  and, 
indeed,  in  too  many  of  the  representatives  to  any  regula- 
tion at  all.  But  now  that  the  difficulties  under  which  the 
country  labors  are  increased,  and  that  every  individual 
person  is  sensible  of  them,  and  that  those  that  have  given 
themselves  the  trouble  of  inquiring  into  the  success  of  the 
Virginia  law  are  convinced  of  the  necessity  of  some  such 


116  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

regulation  here,  and  that  without  it  the  country  is  in 
apparent  danger  of  being  absolutely  ruined,  it  is  to  be 
hoped  that  they  would  act  so  reasonably  and  be  so  much 
their  own  friends  to  use  all  means  in  their  power  to  avert 
the  calamities  with  which  the  country  is  threatened. 

"  To  the  making  an  effectual  regulation  to  this  purpose* 
there  is  one  great  obstacle,  and  that  is  the  specific  pay- 
ments in  tobacco  which  by  the  present  laws  the  people  are 
obliged  to  make  to  the  clergy,  officers,  and  lawyers.  .  .  . 
The  only  expedient  we  can  think  of,  or  believe  practica- 
ble, is  the  retrenching  the  tobacco  payments,  into  which 
we  believe  that  even  the  clergy  themselves  would  volun- 
tarily come,  notwithstanding  the  establishment  in  their 
favor  ;  and  should  the  officers  or  practitioners  of  the  law 
be  less  forward  to  contribute  to  the  public  good,  it  would 
render  them  odious  to  all  mankind,  and  occasion  the 
calamities  of  the  country  to  be  imputed  to  them,  nor 
would  the  odium  stop  here.  As  to  such  of  ourselves  as 
are  entitled  by  the  offices  we  hold,  or  our  profession,  to 
the  tobacco  fees,  we  beg  leave  to  assure  your  Lordship 
that  we  would  most  readily  and  cheerfully  sacrifice  part 
of  our  own  income  to  the  welfare  of  the  country  ;  but  in 
the  present  case  we  believe  that  we  would  be  gainers  if 
a  proper  regulation  was  to  take  place,  as  the  value  of 
what  we  should  then  receive  would  (in  all  probability) 
exceed  what  we  can  now  hope  for."1 

Nothing  less,  then,  than  extreme  danger  of  the  country's 
ruin  was  required  to  break  down  the  obstacles  to  the  long- 
needed  tobacco  legislation.  Even  then,  some  of  the 
planters  of  the  poorer  sort  opposed  the  passing  of  a  law 
like  that  of  Virginia,  on  the  ground  that  the  expense  of 
executing  it  would  make  the  taxes  heavier  than  they  could 
bear.2     But  early  in  the  year  1747  some  freemen  of  Talbot 

i  C.  R.,  February  1, 1743.       2 Maryland  Gazette,  April  1, 1746;  April  28, 1747. 


THE   INDUSTRIAL   DEVELOPMENT  117 

County  pointed  out  to  their  delegates  the  extreme  neces- 
sity of  improving  the  quality  of  Maryland  tobacco  and 
recommended  the  Virginia  inspection  act.  At  the  same 
time,  also,  the  need  of  such  an  act  was  much  discussed  in 
the  columns  of  the  Maryland  Gazette.  The  arguments 
of  those  who  were  in  favor  of  an  inspection  act  were 
decidedly  the  stronger.  The  result  was  that  in  the  ses- 
sion of  assembly  of  that  year  greater  harmony  prevailed 
than  had  been  known  for  years  ;  the  officers,  the  lawyers, 
and  the  clergy  agreed  to  the  reduction  of  their  fees  ;  the 
inspection  act,  modelled  after  that  of  Virginia,  was  passed 
with  but  little  difficulty  ;  and  at  the  breaking  up  of  the 
session  so  intense  was  the  general  good  feeling  that  the 
members  of  both  houses  drank  twice  to  the  success  of 
the  tobacco  trade,  the  town  guns  were  fired  ten  or  eleven 
rounds,  and  the  populace,  having  punch  and  wine  distrib- 
uted among  them,  made  loud  acclamations  of  joy.1 

The  act  was  entitled,  an  act  for  amending  the  staple  of 
tobacco,  for  preventing  frauds  in  his  Majesty's  customs, 
and  for  the  limitation  of  officers'  fees.  It  provided  for  a 
warehouse,  scales,  and  a  wharf  at  each  of  eighty  appointed 
places ;  and  no  tobacco  was  to  be  exported  before  it  had 
passed  a  carefully  provided  inspection  at  one  of  those 
warehouses. 

The  disadvantage  of  having  so  many  shipping  places 
was  still  felt  by  some  as  a  heavy  burden.  It  was  charged 
that  the  cost  of  eighty  warehouses,  eighty  scales,  and 
eighty  wharves  was  .£6400,  and  that  the  annual  expense 
of  the  entire  inspection  service  was  .£5780  ;  whereas  it 
was  estimated,  that  if  the  eighty  had  been  reduced  to  two, 
—  one  on  each  shore,  —  the  annual  expense  would  have 
been  reduced  to  <£966.2  Yet  the  price  of  tobacco  per 
hundred  pounds  soon  advanced  from  eight  shillings  and 

1  Maryland  Gazette,  July  14,  1747.  a  J&itf.,  July  12,  1753. 


118          MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

less  to  twelve  shillings.  While  no  limitation  was  im- 
posed as  to  quantity,  the  amount  required  to  pay  the  fees 
of  the  officers,  the  lawyers,  and  the  clergy  was  reduced 
twenty  per  cent.  Moreover,  the  inspection  encouraged 
the  spirit  of  emulation  among  the  planters,  inducing  them 
to  offer  prizes  for  tobacco  of  the  best  quality.  Weight, 
substance,  scent,  size  of  the  leaf,  and  neatness  of  packing 
were  the  elements  considered  by  the  judges  who  awarded 
the  prize.  One  of  the  results  was  that,  while  the  ordinary 
net  weight  of  a  hogshead  had  been  less  than  1000  pounds, 
in  the  year  1752  the  net  weight  of  a  hogshead  belonging 
to  a  man  in  Queen  Anne's  County  was  1829  pounds ;  and 
those  who  witnessed  the  inspection  of  it  agreed  that  they 
never  saw  tobacco  in  better  order.1 

After  the  law  had  been  in  force  three  years,  the  lower 
house  acknowledged  the  advantages  derived  from  it,  and 
expressed  the  hope  that  by  amending  and  continuing  it 
Maryland  might  become  the  home  of  a  prosperous  and 
flourishing  people.  With  but  little  change,  the  act  was 
continued  and  cherished  as  the  most  precious  law  of  the 
province  until  1770,  when  its  loss,  owing  to  another  con- 
troversy over  officers'  fees  and  dues  to  the  clergy,  gave 
rise  to  the  violence  that  followed  ;  and  some  measure  of 
quiet  was  restored  only  after  the  revival  of  that  act  in 
1773,  with  the  omission  of  all  provisions  relating  to  offi- 
cers' fees  and  dues  to  the  clergy. 

But  a  well-regulated  tobacco  industry  was  insufficient 
to  bring  Maryland  to  her  fullest  and  completest  develop- 
ment, either  industrially  or  politically.  All  the  land  that 
was  adapted  to  the  raising  of  tobacco  lay  near  the  bay. 
The  raising  of  nothing  but  tobacco  soon  exhausted  the 
fertility  of  the  soil.  It  was  a  long  time  before  all  the 
tobacco   land  was   taken   up.     Consequently,  since   land 

1  Maryland  Gazette,  August  20,  1752. 


THE   INDUSTRIAL   DEVELOPMENT  119 

was  cheap,  and  new  land  produced  a  larger  quantity  and 
a  superior  quality  of  tobacco,  the  old  was  often  abandoned 
to  the  weeds.1  Instead  of  developing  the  resources  of  a 
country,  such  a  process  was  destined  rather  to  foster  a 
careless  and  slovenly  spirit,  which  even  to-day  hovers 
over  the  rural  districts  of  southern  Maryland.  Again, 
the  labor  which  the  raising  of  tobacco  required  was  ex- 
hausting, and  created  a  demand  for  the  African  slave. 

Furthermore,  excess  of  attention  to  tobacco  culture  pre- 
vented the  province  from  becoming  self-sustaining,  and 
hence,  also,  industrially  independent.  For  the  tobacco 
planter  took  little  of  the  produce  of  his  land  to  the  towns 
within  the  province  to  exchange  for  articles  of  food  and 
clothing  of  Maryland  production  and  manufacture.  But, 
for  a  long  time,  to  the  planter's  own  port  the  English 
merchant  sent  his  goods  to  be  exchanged  for  tobacco. 
There  was,  therefore,  little  need  for  towns.  Under  such 
conditions  it  is  not  strange  that  the  people  of  Maryland 
continued  so  long  to  speak  of  England  as  their  "  home  "  ; 
for  while  raising  little  except  tobacco,  they  scarcely  made 
a  home  of  their  own  within  the  province. 

The  bay  was  for  them  a  convenient  highway  for  trans- 
portation and  social  intercourse.  Consequently  the  mak- 
ing of  roads  was  so  largely  neglected,  that  in  several  of 
the  older  counties  a  beginning  has  hardly  yet  been  made. 
Notice  has  already  been  taken  of  the  inconveniences  re- 
sulting from  the  disagreement  with  respect  to  the  regula- 
tion of  ferries. 

In  the  bay  was  a  great  abundance  and  a  considerable 
variety  of  both  sea  food  and  water  fowl.  Although  there 
were  large  numbers  of  horses,  cattle,  and  swine  within  the 
province,  yet,  after  having  been  branded  as  far  as  possible 
by  their  owners,  the  most  of  them  were  allowed  to  roam 

1  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  I,  p.  38. 


120  MARYLAND   AS    A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

half  wild  in  the  backwoods  with  the  numerous  deer  and 
wild  turkey.  Of  sheep  there  were  few,  because  it  was  too 
troublesome  to  protect  them  from  the  wolves. 

Nature  was  too  lavish  with  her  gifts  to  the  tobacco 
planters.  She  gave  them  too  many  ports,  too  much  meat ; 
and  as  a  consequence  their  environment  became  enervating 
rather  than  an  incentive  to  progress.  But  with  the  re- 
markable variety  of  her  soil  and  climate,  and  the  richness 
of  her  mineral  resources,  there '  was  no  reason,  from  the 
industrial  standpoint,  why  Maryland  might  not  become  a 
self-constituted  whole.  The  development  necessary  to 
bring  about  such  a  condition  was  a  long  time  beginning. 

As  early  as  1639  Secretary  Lewger  wrote  to  the  pro- 
prietor about  the  progress  that  was  being  made  toward 
providing  the  province,  and  more  especially  the  proprie- 
tary manors,  with  cattle,  swine,  sheep,  and  poultry.1  In 
1663  Governor  Charles  Calvert  wrote  to  the  same  pro- 
prietor, his  father,  the  following :  "  As  for  setting  up  a 
farm  of  English  grain,  I  have  this  year  made  a  good  step 
toward  it,  by  sowing  fifteen  or  sixteen  bushels  of  wheat 
and  ten  or  twelve  bushels  of  oats,  seven  bushels  of  peas, 
eight  or  nine  bushels  of  barley.  And  if  the  year  prove 
seasonable,  I  doubt  not  but  to  have  three  hundred  bushels 
of  wheat  increase.  For  last  year  in  a  spot  of  ground  of 
two  acres  and  a  half  I  had  above  forty  bushels  of  wheat, 
twelve  bushels  of  oats,  and  eight  or  nine  bushels  of  peas. 
And  the  straw  of  that  preserved  my  young  cattle  in  the 
hard  weather,  and  kept  me  four  horses  constantly  in  the 
stable  in  very  good  heart,  when  other  horses  were  hardly 
able  to  do  any  service.  The  flax  and  hemp  which  your 
Lordship  sent  me  was  sown  and  begins  now  to  come  up, 
for  which  I  return  your  Lordship  my  humble  thanks."2 

During  much  of  the  seventeenth  century  there  was  an 

i  Calvert  Papers,  No.  1,  p.  196.  2  Ibid.,  p.  246. 


THE    INDUSTRIAL   DEVELOPMENT  121 

act  of  assembly  requiring  every  tobacco  planter  to  tend 
two  acres  of  corn.  From  1662  to  1666  an  act  of  assembly, 
for  encouraging  the  sowing  of  wheat,  oats,  rye,  barley,  and 
peas,  fixed  the  price  per  bushel  at  which  each  should  pass 
in  payment  of  rent,  and  other  dues.  During  most  of  the 
time  from  1671  to  1776  there  was  in  force  an  act  of  assem- 
bly which  gave  a  bounty  for  raising  hemp  and  flax  or  else 
fixed  the  price  at  which  each  should  pass  in  payment  of 
debts.  In  1682  the  legislature  began  a  long-continued 
practice  of  offering  premiums  on  the  best  manufactured 
pieces  of  linen.  By  act  of  that  body,  passed  in  the  year  1765, 
each  county  court  was  to  pay  out  yearly  eight  thousand 
pounds  of  tobacco  in  such  prize  money.  For  a  short  time, 
also,  similar  premiums  were  offered  for  the  encouragement 
of  woollen  manufactures.  In  1719  workers  in  iron  began 
to  receive  some  aid  from  legislative  enactments.  Finally, 
the  act  of  assembly,  by  which  the  quit-rents  and  alienation 
fines  were  paid  from  1717  to  1733,  removed,  during  those 
years,  the  burden  of  rent  from  the  non-tobacco-producing 
lands,  and  placed  it  all  on  the  tobacco  industry. 

In  1715  Governor  Hart,  in  a  speech  to  both  houses  of 
Assembly,  said  :  "  The  inhabitants  of  this  province  with  a 
commendable  industry  use  their  best  endeavors  to  culti- 
vate tobacco,  but  there  still  remain  many  spacious  tracts 
of  this  fertile  soil  (especially  on  the  eastern  shore)  which 
are  not  so  agreeable  to  the  nature  of  that  passable  plant, 
but  exceedingly  well  adapted  to  the  making  of  hemp. 
What  of  this  kind  has  been  hitherto  only  raised  for  a 
home  consumption  in  the  opinion  of  mariners  equals  the 
best  that  grows  in  Europe.  An  improvement  of  this 
manufacture  is  worthy  your  consideration."1 

The  great  impetus  to  the  development  of  the  province 
was,  however,  to  be  given  neither  by  legislative  enact- 

iL.  H.  J.,  April  26,  1715. 


122  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

ments  nor  by  the  making  of  hemp  on  the  eastern  shore, 
but  through  the  opening,  chiefly  by  the  industrious  Pala- 
tines, of  the  resources  of  the  rich  wheat  lands,  and  the  iron 
mines  of  the  middle  west,  in  what  became  Frederick 
County.  As  early  as  1710  some  Palatines  came  into  the 
province  and  settled  in  that  county.  The  legislative 
Assembly  encouraged  that  movement  by  exempting  them 
for  the  time  being  from  the  payment  of  all  public  levies.1 
At  about  the  same  time  a  considerable  number  of  the  same 
nationality  settled  in  Pennsylvania  and  Virginia.  As  a 
consequence  of  the  intercourse  between  them,  the  land  of 
Frederick  County,  Maryland,  had,  by  the  year  1729,  be- 
gun to  attract  the  attention  of  large  numbers.2  Then, 
partly  in  the  interest  of  his  boundary  dispute  with  the 
Penns,  Charles  Calvert  gave  the  Palatines  strong  induce- 
ments to  settle  in  his  province  ;  that  is,  he  offered  two 
hundred  acres  of  back  lands  to  every  family,  and  one 
hundred  acres  to  every  single  person  between  the  ages  of 
fifteen  and  thirty,  who  should  settle  thereon,  requiring 
the  payment  not  only  of  no  purchase  money  whatever,  but 
also  of  no  quit-rent  during  the  first  three  years  after  set- 
tlement. After  the  end  of  the  three  years  they  were  to  be 
charged  an  annual  quit-rent  of  only  four  shillings  sterling 
for  every  hundred  acres.3  In  1735  Daniel  Dulany  offered 
sufficiently  favorable  terms  to  induce  about  one  hundred 
families  recently  arrived  from  the  Palatinate  to  settle  on 
some  of  his  land  in  the  same  county.  In  1749  the  proprie- 
tor informed  the  governor  that  a  number  of  Palatines  were 
soon  to  arrive,  and  instructed  him  to  give  them  grants  of 
land  as  far  back  as  possible  upon  any  terms  he  saw  fit.4 

iL.  H.  J.,  October  27,  1710. 

2  Sctmltz,  "First  Settlements  of  Germans  in  Maryland." 

»C.  R.,  March  2,  1732. 

*  Portfolio  3,  No.  14. 


THE   INDUSTRIAL    DEVELOPMENT  123 

But  the  governor  had  already  offered  the  same  terms  as 
those  of  the  year  1732,  except  that  purchase  money  of  five 
pounds  sterling  per  hundred  acres  was  to  be  paid  five 
years  from  date  of  settlement. 

Such  favorable  terms,  and  the  productive  soil,  had  the 
effect  of  drawing  increasing  numbers  of  people  into  those 
parts.  In  1774  Frederick  County  had  a  population  of 
nearly  fifty  thousand,  or  but  little  less  than  one-seventh 
of  that  of  the  whole  province. 

The  first  results  of  the  movement  are  indicated  in  a  let- 
ter written  in  1745  by  Daniel  Dulany  to  Samuel  Ogle,  in 
which  the  writer  said,  "You  would  be  surprised  to  see 
how  much  the  country  is  improved  beyond  the  Mountains, 
especially  by  the  Germans,  who  are  the  best  people  that 
can  be  to  settle  a  wilderness  ;  and  the  fertility  of '  the  soil 
makes  them  ample  amends  for  their  industry."1  Where 
the  forests  had  been,  there  appeared  the  wheat  fields.  The 
influence  of  wheat  raising  in  that  county  grew,  and  spread 
even  to  the  eastern  shore.  In  1770  the  Bordley  wheat  field 
of  three  hundred  acres  on  Wye  Island  was  an  object  of  de- 
light to  the  wealthy  men  of  the  province.  Moreover,  in  the 
year  1751  sixty  wagon-loads  of  flaxseed  came  from  the 
back  settlements  to  the  town  of  Baltimore  within  the  space 
of  only  two  days.2 

At  first  the  Germans  used  wagons  and  ploughs  made  en- 
tirely of  wood.  For  a  time  their  chief  means  of  transpor- 
tation was  on  pack-horses  through  Indian  trails.  But  it 
was  not  long  before  iron  mines  were  discovered,  furnaces 
and  forges  set  up,  and  the  manufacture  of  many  useful 
implements  begun.  In  1749  there  were  eight  furnaces  for 
making  pig-iron,  and  nine  forges  for  making  bar-iron.3 

As  early  as  1739  the  making  of  public  roads  began  in 

1  Dulany  Papers.  2  Maryland  Gazette,  October  30,  1751. 

3  C.  K.,  December  13,  1749. 


124  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

earnest.  First,  the  county  courts  of  Frederick  and  Balti- 
more counties  became  active  in  this  particular.  Then,  in 
1750,  an  order  in  council  was  issued  which  demanded  the 
enforcement  of  the  old  law  for  the  clearing,  marking,  and 
improving  of  roads.  The  following  year  the  governor  in 
his  opening  speech  to  the  Assembly  made  a  special  effort  to 
encourage  a  spirit  of  improvement  in  general,  and  urged 
the  straightening  of  the  highways  in  particular.  Later, 
the  General  Assembly  not  only  strengthened  the  law  requir- 
ing work  on  the  roads,  but  it  loaned  money  to  Baltimore, 
Frederick,  and  Anne  Arundel  counties  for  the  purpose  of 
assisting  them  to  open,  straighten,  and  widen  their  roads. 
The  result  of  all  this  was  that  sometime  before  the  prov- 
ince became  a  state,  wagons  drawn  by  two,  four,  six,  or 
eight  horses  took  the  place  of  the  pack-horses,  and  trans- 
ported produce  and  wares  to  and  from  the  seaports  and 
the  growing  towns  of  the  interior. 

The  change  that  had  come  may  also  be  seen  from  the 
increase  in  trade.  In  1697  the  board  of  trade  was  in- 
formed that  all  the  laborers  of  Maryland  were  employed 
in  planting  tobacco,  except  coopers,  carpenters,  a  few  sail- 
ors, and  a  very  small  number  of  other  artisans  working  at 
trades  which  had  relation  to  tobacco.  In  1731  there  was 
but  a  small  beginning  in  the  exchange  of  lumber  and  grain 
for  wine  and  molasses.  The  lower  house  in  that  year 
reported  that  the  continuing  of  the  people  so  long  in  "  the 
old  beaten  track  of  raising  tobacco  "  had  made  them  in- 
capable of  carrying  on  any  considerable  trade  or  manufac- 
ture ;  and  that  only  extreme  want  had  driven  some  of  the 
poorer  inhabitants  to  the  manufacture  of  coarse  linens 
and  woollens  for  their  own  particular  use,  without  which 
they  would  have  starved  and  gone  naked.1 

But  in   1749   about   fifty  vessels  were   owned   by  the 

1  U.  H.  J.,  August  26,  1731. 


THE   INDUSTRIAL   DEVELOPMENT  125 

inhabitants  of  the  province.  Although  the  trade  was 
still  chiefly  in  tobacco,  the  annual  export  of  which  was 
about  28,000  hogsheads,  yet  in  that  year  the  exports 
of  wheat,  corn,  pig  and  bar  iron,  lumber,  and  furs  were 
valued  at  £16,000  sterling.  About  twelve  years  later 
the  quantity  of  exported  tobacco  had  decreased  rather 
than  increased,  while  the  value  of  other  exports  was 
reported  to  be  £ 90,000,  or  one-half  the  value  of  all  the 
imports  from  Great  Britain,  among  which  exports  were 
150,000  bushels  of  wheat  and  2000  tons  of  iron.  But 
this  was  in  the  midst  of  the  last  intercolonial  war.  As 
early  as  1753  an  anonymous  friend  of  the  lord  proprietor, 
but  one  who  claimed  that  he  took  his  figures  from  the 
custom-house  books,  stated  that  there  were  exported  in 
that  year  110,567  bushels  of  wheat,  154,741  bushels  of 
corn,  6327  barrels  of  bread  and  flour,  475  barrels  of  pork, 
170  barrels  of  herring,  100  hogsheads  and  100  bags  of  flax- 
seed, 2500  tons  of  pig-iron,  600  tons  of  bar-iron,  1,095,500 
staves  and  headings,  and  200,000  shingles.1 

Moreover,  besides  that  which  was  shipped  from  the 
province,  the  disadvantage  still  arising  from  having  so 
many  ports  caused  much  produce  to  be  carried  to  the 
large  market  at  Philadelphia.  UA  great  part  of  the 
wheat  flour  and  other  produce,"  wrote  Governor  Sharpe, 
in  1762,  "  is  now  carried  to  Philadelphia,  the  price  there 
being  always  higher  than  in  Maryland,  owing  to  the  vast 
trade  carried  on  from  thence  to  the  West  Indies  and  other 
parts.  As  the  merchants  there  can  always  load  their 
vessels  at  once,  they  can  afford  to  give  more  for  the  car- 
goes than  merchants  in  this  province  can  give,  because 
ours  must  be  a  long  time  collecting  a  cargo  for  even  a 
small  vessel,  there  being  no  town  or  port  in  Maryland 
where  any  considerable  quantity  of  country  produce  can 

1  Portfolio  2,  No.  7. 


126    MARYLAND  AS  A  PROPRIETARY  PROVINCE 

be  purchased  at  once.  .  .  .  The  only  means  to  remedy 
the  evil  would  be  to  restrain  the  whole  trade  of  the  prov- 
ince to  one  or  two  ports  —  a  scheme  not  likely  to  be 
relished  by  the  Assembly."1  But  although  the  Assembly 
did  not  approve  of  such  a  scheme,  the  growing  town  of 
Baltimore  was  supplying  that  want,  in  large  measure,  be- 
fore the  proprietary  government  was  overthrown. 

Again,  with  the  exception  of  a  little  copper  coin  and  a 
very  limited  amount  of  Spanish  coin,  tobacco  was  almost 
the  sole  money  of  the  province  for  the  first  one  hundred 
years.  So  long  as  the  trade  in  that  commodity  remained 
in  such  a  low  state,  it  poorly  served  as  a  circulating 
medium  or  as  a  standard  of  deferred  payments,  and  was, 
therefore,  a  drawback  to  the  progress  of  all  the  industries. 
Thus,  in  the  year  1729,  the  governor  wrote  :  "  When  our 
tobacco  is  sold  at  home,  whatever  is  the  product,  it  returns 
to  us  not  in  money,  but  is  either  converted  into  apparel, 
tools,  or  other  conveniences  of  life,  or  else  remains  there 
as  it  were  dead  to  us  ;  for  where  the  staple  of  a  country 
upon  foreign  sales  yields  no  return  of  money  to  circulate 
in  such  a  country,  the  want  of  such  a  circulation  must 
leave  it  almost  inanimate :  it  is  like  a  dead  palsie  on  the 
public."2 

It  was  this  extremely  stagnant  condition  of  the  trade 
that  at  last  thoroughly  aroused  the  people  to  a  conscious- 
ness of  their  need  of  a  different  money,  and  in  1732-33 
prevailed  with  the  Assembly  to  pass  an  act  for  issuing 
£ 90,000  in  paper  currency.  Fifteen  years  after  its  issue 
one-third  of  the  whole  amount  was  to  be  redeemed  ;  that 
is,  at  the  end  of  the  fifteen  years  all  the  old  bills  were  to  be 
called  in,  and  on  that  occasion  the  holder  was  to  be  given, 
in  exchange  for  the  old,  new  bills  equal  to  two- thirds  the 

1  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  72. 

2  Calvert  Papers,  No.  2,  p.  69  et  seq. 


THE   INDUSTRIAL   DEVELOPMENT  127 

amount  of  the  old,  while  for  the  other  .third  he  was  to  be 
given  sterling  bills  of  exchange.  Sixteen  years  later,  or 
thirty-one  years,  from  the  date  of  the  first  issue,  the  remain- 
ing two-thirds  were  to  be  redeemed,  and  on  that  occasion 
fifteen  shillings  sterling  were  to  be  paid  for  every  twenty 
shillings  of  the  currency.  Finally,  the  act  provided  for 
the  sinking  fund  by  imposing  a  duty  of  fifteen  pence  on 
every  hogshead  of  tobacco  that  was  exported. 

For  the  first  fifteen  years,  the  continued  low  condition 
of  the  tobacco  trade,  the  refusal  of  the  upper  house  to  pass 
a  bill  which  proposed  the  payment  of  officers'  fees  and 
public  dues  in  the  paper  currency,  and  the  artifices  of 
some  traders,  who  found  their  interest  to  lie  in  the  depre- 
ciation of  those  bills,  reduced  their  credit  so  low  that  at 
times  they  exchanged  at  nearly  fifty  per  cent  below  par.1 
But  the  inspection  act  of  1747  greatly  strengthened  the 
security  of  the  sinking  fund.  Only  a  little  more  than  one 
year  later  the  strict  observance  of  that  part  of  the  act 
which  required  the  sinking  of  one-third  the  amount  of  the 
bills  raised  still  higher  the  credit  of  the  remaining  two- 
thirds.2  Thereafter,  their  exchange  was  never  much 
below  par.  Furthermore,  after  the  last  of  the  bills  had 
been  redeemed,  in  the  year  1764,  it  was  found  that  of  the 
fifteen-pence  duty,  and  of  the  interest  that  had  accrued  on 
the  bills  of  credit,  there  still  remained  to  the  credit  of  the 
province  over  £35,000,  of  which  £ 25,000  were  invested 
in  English  bank  stock.3  On  the  credit  derived  from  that 
fund  the  province  was  thereafter  enabled  to  float  all  the 
currency  which  the  trade  demanded,  without  the  aid  of 
an  act  to  declare  it  a  legal  tender.  As  a  consequence, 
instead  of  harm  coming  to  Maryland  from  the  act  of  Par- 

1  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  I,  p.  45  et  seq. 

2  Maryland  Gazette,  June  21,  1749. 

8  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  251. 


128  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

liament  which  forbade  any  of  the  colonies  to  declare  its 
paper  currency  to  be  a  legal  tender,  it  only  caused  the 
other  colonies  to  borrow  money  of  Maryland.  By  this 
time,  therefore,  that  which  for  a  long  time  had  been 
another  obstacle  in  the  way  of  industrial  development  was 
well  removed. 

In  conclusion,  then,  it  is  clear  that  the  prolonged  effort 
to  regulate  the  tobacco  industry,  in  which  the  support  of 
the  government  was  so  largely  involved,  was  an  almost 
constant  source  of  antagonism  to  the  lord  proprietor  and 
his  government.  And,  finally,  after  the  lord  proprietor's 
power  had  in  large  measure  passed  under  the  control 
of  the  popular  branch  of  the  legislature,  the  regulation 
of  that  industry  by  the  inspection  act,  the  settlement  of 
Frederick  County  by  the  Palatines,  and  the  assistance 
which  was  given  to  trade  by  the  paper  currency  were  not 
only  pushing  the  province  forward  with  rapid  strides 
toward  a  self-constituted  state,  industrially  independent 
of  the  mother  country,  but  were  also  bringing  it  more 
and  more  under  the  influence  of  the  strong  popular  sen- 
timent of  Pennsylvania. 


CHAPTER   V 

THE   SOCIAL   DEVELOPMENT 

While  social  conditions  are  always  closely  dependent 
on  industrial  conditions,  they  also  have  much  to  do  in 
determining  the  political  activity.  Where  the  population 
is  sparse,  where  men  live  apart  from  one  another,  or  even 
in  small  isolated  groups,  with  no  facilities  for  intercourse, 
the  social  pressure  will  be  low,  and  —  even  though  the 
sense  of  individual  freedom  be  strong  —  the  political 
activity  will  be  weak  and  sluggish.  But  with  the  increase 
of  population,  with  the  coming  of  a  diversified  industrial 
activity,  and  with  adequate  facilities  for  intercourse,  the 
strong  sense  of  individual  freedom  will  naturally  develop 
into  a  vigorous  political  life.  Then,  with  the  divergence 
of  the  extremes  between  social  classes,  should  the  govern- 
ment attempt  to  infringe  upon  the  people's  rights  to  life 
or  to  property,  the  political  life  of  an  Anglo-Saxon  people 
will  become  as  intensely  animated  as  if  touched  with  a. 
live  coal.  It  is  therefore  important  to  ascertain  to  what 
extent  the  social  conditions  in  the  province  of  Maryland 
developed  along  these  lines. 

During  the  seventeenth  century  nearly  all  the  people 
were,  as  already  stated,  engaged  in  the  cultivation  of 
tobacco.  Both  large  and  small  planters  lived  on  their 
own  plantations  with  a  number  of  servants  that  was  quite 
proportionate  to  the  size  of  the  estate.  Outside  of  the 
small  settlement  of  houses  —  only  thirty  in  number  as 
k  129 


130  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

late  as  the  year  1678  —  that  were  scattered  for  five  miles 
along  the  shore,  within  the  vicinity  of  the  seat  of  govern- 
ment, town  life  was  unknown.1  There  were  few  mills 
and  no  factories.  The  trade  was  restricted  to  that  which 
each  planter  carried  on  with  the  merchants  of  the  mother 
country.  There  was  an  abundance  of  horses  before  the 
close  of  the  century,  and  yet  the  lack  of  good  roads  was 
a  hindrance  to  travel.  More  than  ninety  per  cent  of  the 
people  were  Protestants,  and  yet  until  the  last  decade  of 
the  seventeenth  century  there  were  few  Protestant  ser- 
vices in  which  the  people  of  that  faith  might  have  been 
united  by  a  stronger  religious  and  social  bond.  The  de- 
pressing tendency  of  the  tobacco  culture  and  the  remote- 
ness of  habitations  from  one  another,  together  with  the 
religious  differences,  resulted  in  the  failure  to  found  any 
public  schools  wherein  a  common  interest  might  have 
been  centred  or  wherein  the  social  tie  might  have  been 
knit  among  the  children.  Unlike  what  was  the  case  in 
so  many  of  the  other  colonies,  the  danger  from  the  Indians 
was  in  Maryland  insufficient  to  force  the  people  together 
for  protection.  So,  also,  the  absence  of  a  state  church  and 
of  public  schools  to  support,  the  insignificant  burden  im- 
posed by  the  necessity  for  defence,  the  slight  expense 
incurred  for  the  making  of  roads,  for  the  erection  of 
public  buildings,  or  for  the  sake  of  any  public  improve- 
ments whatever,  and  the  payment  of  so  many  of  the 
civil  officers  in  fees,  left  taxation  so  light  that  even  it 
failed  to  arouse  the  strength  of  public  sentiment  that 
might  otherwise  have  been  expected.  Finally,  up  to 
the  close  of  this  century,  negro  slave  labor  had  been 
introduced  to  a  very  limited  extent.  The  white  servant 
was  consequently  well  treated,  and  hence  the  feeling  of 
personal   freedom,  which  usually  grows  with  the  diver- 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1667  to  1687-88,  p.  266. 


THE   SOCIAL   DEVELOPMENT  131 

gence  of  extremes  between  social  classes,  was  yet  far  from 
having  attained  its  full  strength. 

The  seventeenth  century  was,  however,  not  entirely 
destitute  of  the  conditions  that  make  for  social  develop- 
ment. The  people  were  naturally  hospitable  and  socially 
inclined.  There  was  the  long  narrow  bay  with  its  many 
deep  inlets  and  with  the  numerous  navigable  rivers  flow- 
ing into  it.  In  no  small  measure  this  body  of  water  sup- 
plied the  place  of  roads.  For,  as  already  observed,  until 
after  the  close  of  this  century  a  very  large  part  of  the 
habitations  were  near  the  water's  edge ;  and,  therefore, 
water  communication  between  them  was  not  only  easy 
but  delightful.  Moreover,  from  the  waters  of  the  bay 
were  procured  large  quantities,  as  well  as  a  considerable 
variety,  of  sea  food  and  water  fowl.  The  consequence  was 
that,  although  town  life  was  wanting,  the  bay  supplied 
some  of  its  socializing  force.  There  were  also,  a  few 
times  each  year,  the  sessions  of  the  county  courts,  when 
many  freemen  were  gathered  at  the  county  seats  and  given 
an  opportunity  for  exchanging  ideas.  In  the  last  half  of 
the  century  the  low  price  of  tobacco,  the  lord  proprietor's 
restriction  of  suffrage,  his  attempt  to  make  the  member- 
ship of  the  lower  house  such  as  he  desired,  and  to  inter- 
fere with  its  freedom  of  action,  and  some  other  such  acts 
of  his,  supplied  the  people  with  an  increasing  variety  of 
subjects,  the  discussion  of  which  could  not  fail  to  promote 
the  development  of  political  life. 

It  required  but  another  half  century  to  bring  about  a 
social  status  that  should  make  of  the  voters  of  Maryland 
a  strong,  active,  and  determined  political  body.  By  that 
time  the  industrial  activity  had  become  quickened  and 
diversified,  and  the  facilities  for  intercourse  were  rapidly 
increasing,  as  was  seen  in  the  last  chapter.  Then,  too, 
the  population  increased   from  only  30,000  in  the  year 


132  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

1710  to  over  160,000  in  the  year  1761.1  To  complete  the 
picture  a  study  of  the  social  classes  still  remains. 

In  the  year  1663  Governor.  Charles  Calvert  wrote  that 
the  freemen  of  Maryland  were  "  naturally  inclined  to  love 
negroes  whenever  their  purses  would  endure  it."2  A 
scheme  of  his  for  importing  each  year  from  100  to  200 
of  that  race  failed,  however,  because  of  the  small 
number  of  large  estates,  and  because  of  the  high  price  of 
slaves  and  the  low  price  of  tobacco.  For  the  same 
reasons,  little  of  the  labor  was  performed  by  slaves  until 
after  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht,  in  1713,  which  placed  the 
trade  in  English  hands.  Even  then,  although  the  in- 
crease of  slave  population  was  quite  rapid  in  several  of 
the  other  colonies,  in  Maryland,  owing  to  the  very  low 
condition  of  the  tobacco  industry,  it  was  rather  slow. 
Finally,  however,  after  that  industry  was  put  on  a  better 
footing  by  the  inspection  act  of  1747,  the  increase  became 
rapid.  Thus,  in  the  year  after  the  passage  of  that  act, 
the  negro  population  was  but  36,000  while  in  1761  it 
was  49,675.  They  seem  to  have  been  fairly  well  treated, 
and  to  have  given  but  little  trouble  until  their  number 
began  to  increase  so  rapidly.  But  by  the  middle  of  the 
century  a  law  had  become  necessary  to  prevent  their 
tumultuous  assembling  and  their  burning  of  tobacco 
houses.  Even  with  that  law,  a  tobacco  house  was  occa- 
sionally burned,  plots  were  formed  to  rob  or  even  to 
murder  their  masters,  a  master  was  now  and  then  shot 
by  one  of  his  slaves,  and  criminal  assaults  committed  by 
slaves  were  not  rare.  The  burning  of  a  tobacco  house 
was  punished  with  death  ;  the  murderer  of  a  master  was 
hanged,  and  sometimes  quartered.3 

Next   above   the   negro  slave   in  the  social  scale  were 

1  C.  R.,  1762.  2  Calvert  Papers,  No.  1,  p.  249. 

»  Maryland  Gazette,  April  17  and  July  30, 1751 ;  July  23,  1752  ;  April  20 
and  June  7,  1753. 


THE   SOCIAL   DEVELOPMENT  133 

the  white  servants  of  whom  there  were,  nominally  three 
classes ;  namely,  convicts,  indented  servants,  and  free- 
willers.  The  convicts  were  those  who  had  been  convicted 
of  felony  in  the  mother  country,  and  sentenced  to  pass  a 
term  of  seven  years  in  some  English  colony.  The  most 
of  them  were  unable  to  pay  for  their  passage,  and  were 
therefore  consigned  to  an  agent,  who  sold  their  obligation 
to  seven  years'  service  for  whatever  price  he  could  obtain. 

In  the  year  1767  it  was  estimated  that  for  the  past 
thirty  years  at  least  six  hundred  convicts  a  year  had  been 
imported.1  By  the  middle  of  the  century  it  became  nec- 
essary to  pass  an  act  of  assembly,  making  the  testimony  of 
one  convict  good  against  another.  In  the  face  of  that  law 
the  murders  and  robberies  committed  in  the  year  -1751,  by 
servants  of  that  class,  were  alarming.2  So  much  so  that 
the  court  of  Baltimore  County  passed  an  order  that  good 
security  of  £50  should  be  given  for  every  convict  im- 
ported into  its  borders ;  and  the  court  of  Anne  Arundel 
County  passed  a  similar  order.  After  the  provincial  court 
had  set  aside  those  orders,  the  Assembly,  in  the  year  1769, 
passed  an  act  requiring  every  master  of  a  ship  importing 
a  felon  to  bring  a  transcript  of  the  record  of  his  conviction, 
requiring  the  person  selling  such  felon  to  deliver  the  tran- 
script to  the  county  clerk,  and  requiring  the  purchaser  to 
go  before  a  justice  of  the  peace  in  his  county  and  enter 
into  recognizance  for  the  sum  of  <£20  currency,  said 
recognizance  to  become  void  only  after  the  convict  had 
kept  the  peace  during  the  time  for  which  he  was  trans- 
ported or  during  his  residence  in  the  province. 

The  convicts  were  not  the  only  emigrants  who  had  not 
the  money  —  about  £9  sterling  —  with  which  to  pay  for 

1  Maryland  Gazette,  July  30,  1767. 

2  Ibid.,  March  20,  April  10  and  17,  and  August  14,  1751;  also  April  16. 
1752;  and  March  28,  1754. 


134  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY- PROVINCE 

their  passage.  The  agents  of  shipmasters,  or  of  London 
and  Bristol  merchants,  were  ever  busy  giving  glowing 
and  alluring  accounts  of  the  bliss  that  awaited  those 
who  were  inclined  to  embark  their  fortunes  in  the  New 
World.  In  numerous  places  they  advertised  the  terms  on 
which  those  who  had  no  money  could  obtain  passage. 
Those  terms  required  that  the  emigrants  should  enter  into 
articles  of  agreement  to  become  a  servant  for  from  two  to 
five  years,  —  usually  five,  —  and  that  upon  arriving  in  the 
province  his  obligation  to  serve  might  be  disposed  of  in  a 
manner  which  was  similar  to  that  of  the  convict.  Those  who 
came  over  on  such  terms  were  known  as  indented  servants. 

The  free-willers  came  upon  slightly  different  terms. 
They  were  given  a  few  days  after  their  arrival  to  engage 
their  services  as  they  pleased,  provided  the  parties  with 
whom  they  engaged  would  advance  the  sum  agreed  upon 
for  their  passage.  But  if  the  newcomer  did  not  succeed 
in  making  such  an  engagement  within  the  time  limited, 
then  he  was  to  be  disposed  of  like  the  indented  servants ; 
and  the  fact  that  the  most  of  them  were  doomed  to  disap- 
pointment in  not  finding  the  labor  they  sought,  rendered 
the  distinction  between  the  indented  servants  and  the 
free-willers  little  more  than  nominal.1 

At  the  termination  of  his  bondage  each  servant  became 
a  freeman,  entitled  to  fifty  acres  of  land,  a  year's  provi- 
sions, clothing,  and  tools.  Until  the  introduction  of  slave 
labor  on  a  large  scale,  servants  seem  to  have  been  treated 
with  but  little  severity,  and  many  of  them  were  suffi- 
ciently thrifty  to  become  prosperous  within  a  few  years 
after  their  release.  But  after  the  negro  slaves  began  to 
come  in  large  numbers,  the  hardships  of  the  white  servants 
greatly  increased.     The  treatment  of  the  white  servants, 

1  Those  who  came  as  indented  servants  or  as  free-willers  are  to-day 
spoken  of  as  redemptioners. 


THE   SOCIAL   DEVELOPMENT  135 

in  many  cases,  was  doubtless  worse  than  that  of  the  slave. 
For,  the  negro  being  a  slave  for  life,  it  was  a  considerable 
loss  to  his  master  to  have  his  strength  impaired  while  he 
was  yet  in  his  prime  ;  but  in  the  case  of  the  white  servant 
the  chances  were  generally  good  that  he  could  endure 
harsh  treatment  and  hard  labor  for  the  few  years  during 
which  he  was  to  be  in  bondage.  Servants,  as  well  as 
slaves,  were  forbidden  by  law  to  travel  ten  miles  from 
home  without  a  note  from  their  master.  Persons  enter- 
taining or  concealing  such  servants  or  slaves  were  to  for- 
feit five  hundred  pounds  of  tobacco  for  every  night  or 
twenty-four  hours  of  such  concealment.  The  master  was 
required  to  pay  two  hundred  pounds  of  tobacco  to  him 
who  took  up  his  runaway  servant  or  slave.  The  servant 
thus  unlawfully  absenting  himself  was  required,  when  re- 
covered, to  serve  not  exceeding  ten  days  for  every  day's 
absence,  —  at  the  discretion  of  the  county  court,  —  and 
also  by  service  to  make  good  the  cost  of  taking  him  up. 
On  the  other  hand,  however,  masters  not  providing  suffi- 
cient food,  lodging,  and  clothing  for  their  servants,  bur- 
dening them  beyond  their  strength,  abusing  them,  or 
giving  them  above  ten  lashes  for  any  one  offence,  without 
the  permission  of  a  magistrate,  were  subject  to  a  fine  not 
exceeding  one  thousand  pounds  of  tobacco  ;  and  if  the 
master  so  offended  three  times  the  servant  might  be 
set  free.1  Many  cases  between  master  and  servant  were 
heard  in  the  county  courts,  and  such  cases  were  usually 
decided  in  favor  of  the  master.  In  one  of  the  last  years 
of  the  proprietary  period  an  eye-witness  described  the  lot 
of  the  servants  as  follows  :  "  Generally  speaking,  they  groan 
beneath  a  worse  than  Egyptian  bondage.  By  attempting 
to  lighten  the  intolerable  burthen,  they  often  render  it  more 
insupportable.     For  real  or  imaginary  causes,  they  fre- 

i  Laws  of  1715. 


136  MARYLAND   AS    A    PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

quently  attempt  to  escape  ;  but  very  few  are  successful,  the 
country  being  intersected  with  rivers,  and  the  utmost  dili- 
gence observed  in  detecting  persons  under  suspicious  cir- 
cumstances, who,  when  apprehended,  are  committed  to  close 
confinement,  advertised  and  delivered  to  their  respective 
masters,  the  party  who  detects  the  vagrant  being  entitled  to 
a  reward.  Other  incidental  charges  arise.  The  unhappy 
culprit  is  doomed  to  severe  chastisement ;  and  a  prolonga- 
tion of  servitude  is  decreed  in  full  proportion  to  expenses 
incurred,  and  supposed  inconveniences  resulting  from  a 
desertion  of  duty."1 

It  seems  highly  probable  that  there  were  many  among 
those  ill-used  servants  Who  did  not  prosper  upon  becom- 
ing freemen.  At  any  rate,  by  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century  indigent  freemen  had  become  so  numerous  as  to 
be  felt  as  a  heavy  burden  on  the  public.  In  the  year 
1754,  after  Governor  Sharpe  had  called  the  attention  of 
the  Assembly  to  the  great  growth  of  this  burden,  a  com- 
mittee of  the  lower  house  found  that  for  the  preceding 
year  the  several  counties  had  allowed  647,027  pounds  of 
tobacco  for  the  support  of  the  poor.2  Fourteen  years 
later  an  act  of  assembly  for  the  relief  of  the  poor  pro- 
vided for  the  erection  of  an  alms  and  a  work  house  in  each 
of  several  of  the  counties. 

Furthermore,  prisoners  for  debt  were  numerous.  As 
early  as  the  year  1732  an  act  of  assembly  provided  for  the 
release  of.  any  such  prisoner  upon  his  delivering  up  his 
estate  upon  oath.  During  the  last  years  of  the  proprietary 
period  from  fifty  to  more  than  one  hundred  such  prisoners 
were  released  at  every  session  of  assembly.  Finally,  as 
their  number  became  so  great,  an  act  for  their  more  speedy 
release  intrusted  the  matter  to  the  county  courts. 

1  Eddis,  Letters  from  America,  pp.  63-89. 

2  Maryland  Gazette,  June  6,  1754  ;  L.  H.  J.,  May  27,  1754. 


THE   SOCIAL    DEVELOPMENT  137 

Passing  on  now  to  the  average  freeman,  if  he  had  a  mod- 
erate amount  of  property  he  was,  nevertheless,  decidedly 
uneducated  if  not  illiterate.  He  was  afforded  little  or  no 
opportunity  for  a  schooling.  In  the  year  1671  the  lower 
house  amended  a  bill  from  the  upper  house  for  founding  a 
school ;  but,  owing  chiefly  to  the  difference  between  the  re- 
ligious faiths  of  the  two  houses,  that  bill  was  finally  lost.1 
Twelve  years  later,  after  the  lord  proprietor  had  written  a 
letter  in  behalf  of  one  Douglas,  after  he  had  recommended 
that  a  common  school  should  be  in  some  way  founded  and 
that  Douglas  should  be  the  schoolmaster,  the  governor, 
in  reply,  mentioned  the  remoteness  of  habitations  from 
one  another,  and  stated  that  under  the  circumstances  he 
did  not  believe  the  people  were  very  desirous  of  that 
means  of  educating  their  children.2  Another  writer  has 
already  pointed  out  that  if  at  any  time  in  the  seventeenth 
century  the  Massachusetts  law  of  lfHr7v  which  required 
every  township  of  fifty  householders  to  maintain  a  school 
for  teaching  children  to  read  and  write,  had  been  enacted 
in  Maryland,  it  would  not  have  required  the  establish- 
ment of  a  single  school,  because  no  portion  of  the  province 
was  thickly  enough  settled  to  have  fifty  householders  in 
an  area  equal  to  a  New  England  township. 

Francis  Nicholson,  who  had  been  instrumental  in  the 
founding  of  the  college  of  William  and  Mary  in  Virginia, 
sought  in  like  manner  to  promote  the  cause  of  learning 
in  Maryland,  upon  his  becoming  governor  of  that  province. 
In  the  year  1695  he  was  so  far  successful  as  to  get  an  act 
through  the  Assembly  for  the  founding  of  one  or  more 
free  schools,  in  which,  among  other  branches,  Latin  and 
Greek  were  to  be  taught.  A  part  of  the  funds  necessary 
for  carrying  the  act  into  execution  were  to  be  obtained 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1666  to  1676,  pp.  262, 
263,  264.  2  Calvert  Papers,  No.  1,  p.  286. 


138  MARYLAND   AS    A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

from  a  duty  on  imported  liquors  and  from  an  export  duty 
on  furs  and  certain  meats  ;  but,  in  the  main,  those  funds 
had  to  come  from  voluntary  contributions.  The  governor 
subscribed  £50  toward  a  building  and  £25  a  year  toward 
maintaining  a  master.  The  members  of  the  council  sub- 
scribed from  one  thousand  to  two  thousand  pounds  of 
tobacco  each ;  and  the  several  members  of  the  lower 
house  subscribed  in  all  forty-five  hundred  pounds  of 
tobacco.  Plans  were  laid  for  the  founding  of  one  such 
school  on  each  shore,  and  it  was  probably  the  hope  that 
before  long  one  would  be  founded  in  each  county.  But 
before  a  building  was  begun  a  quarrel  arose  between  the 
governor  and  the  lower  house,  and  Governor  Nicholson 
was  succeeded  by  Governor  Blackiston.  The  building  of 
even  one  schoolhouse  was,  as  a  consequence,  not  completed 
until  the  year  1701,  when  the  subscriptions  were  sold  at 
a  discount  and  a  school  —  known  as  King  William's 
School  —  was  opened  at  Annapolis.  But  even  then  the 
members  of  the  lower  house  and  their  constituents  took 
little  interest  in  this  school  or  in  any  other  means  of 
education.1 

In  the  year  1714  Governor  Hart  complained  to  the 
Assembly  of  the  slender  support  that  was  given  to  this 
one  school,  complained  that  the  eastern  shore  was  still 
without  any  school  whatever  ;  and  he  declared  it  was 
a  deplorable  reflection  that  no  better  provision  was  made 
for  education.2  At  the  same  time  the  clergy  complained 
that  the  parish  schools  were  very  bad  because  there  were 
no  good  schoolmasters.3  Three  years  later  the  same  gov- 
ernor upon  the  same  subject  pleaded  with  the  Assembly, 
saying  :  "  I  have  on  several  occasions  recommended  to 
you  the  absolute  necessity  of  propagating  learning  in  this 

i  L.  H.  J.,  May  13,  1715.  2  Ibid.,  October  6,  1714. 

8  U.  H.  J.,  June  23,  1714. 


THE   SOCIAL   DEVELOPMENT  139 

province  by  making  some  competent  provision  for  schools, 
and  I  would  be  happy  if  there  was  a  foundation  for  at 
least  one  in  every  county.  But  as  yet  there  is  but  slender 
encouragement  given,  nay,  the  funds  that  are  directed  for 
the  maintenance  of  schools  are  of  so  inconsiderable  a  value 
that,  unless  you  think  proper  to  make  better  provision 
for  that  pious  and  useful  end,  even  the  school  at  Annapo- 
lis, which  begins  to  increase  and  flourish,  must  for  want 
of  due  support  be  laid  aside."1 

One  great  obstacle  to  a  provision  for  education  was  the 
jealousy  of  one  county  toward  another,  and  especially 
of  those  on  the  one  shore  toward  those  on  the  other. 
When  the  movement  was  made  in  Governor  Nicholson's 
administration,  the  general  plan  seems  to  have  provided 
for  the  founding  of  one  school  in  each  county  within  the 
near  future.  So,  when  it  came  to  be  felt  that  it  would 
be  a  long  time  before  the  movement  would  result  in  the 
founding  of  so  many  schools,  it  lost  support  to  such  an 
extent  that  little  interest  was  taken  even  in  the  school 
at  Annapolis.  But  now  Governor  Hart  was  reviving 
the  plan  of  founding  a  school  in  each  county.  He  was 
doing  this  at  a  time  when  the  feeling  of  Protestants 
against  Catholics  was  stronger  than  ever,  and,  being  him- 
self a  zealous  Protestant,  he  contended  that  the  strength 
of  Catholicism  lay  in  the  gross  ignorance  and  superstition 
which  prevailed.  Under  these  circumstances,  and  when 
the  importation  of  negro  slaves  was  beginning  to  increase, 
the  Assembly  passed  an  act  for  imposing  an  additional 
import  duty  of  twenty  shillings  per  poll  on  negro  slaves 
and  Irish  Catholic  servants,  the  proceeds  of  which  were 
to  be  divided  equally  among  the  several  counties  for  the 
maintenance  of  one  school  in  each. 

Furthermore,  the  governor  led  the  Assembly  to  hope 

i  L.  H.  J.,  May  28,  1717. 


140  MARYLAND    AS    A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

that  upon  the  expiration  of  the  act  of  parliament,  which 
imposed  a  tobacco  duty  of  one  penny  per  hogshead  for  the 
support  of  the  college  of  William  and  Mary  in  Virginia, 
Parliament  might  be  prevailed  upon  to  allow  the  proceeds 
from  that  duty  to  be  applied  toward  the  encouragement 
of  learning  in  Maryland.  The  Assembly,  acting  in  accord 
with  the  governor's  advice,  drew  up  an  address  to  the 
lord  proprietor,  requesting  him  to  present  the  matter  to 
the  crown.  That  address  was  an  earnest  plea  in  the 
interest  of  education.  In  it  was  shown  a  strong  desire  to 
strengthen  Protestantism  and  to  fit  natives  of  the  province 
for  all  the  offices  in  both  church  and  state.1  Although 
the  lord  proprietor  was  obliged  to  inform  the  governor 
and  the  Assembly  that  the  act  of  parliament  for  the  sup- 
port of  the  Virginia  college  was  a  perpetual  one,  he  prom- 
ised his  own  assistance  to  the  cause  of  education.2  This 
was  in  the  year  1719.  The  following  year  Governor  Hart 
was  succeeded  by  Governor  Calvert.  The  Assembly,  out 
of  good-will  toward  Governor  Hart,  had  given  him  an 
extra  duty  on  tobacco  of  threepence  per  hogshead.  The 
lord  proprietor  now  proposed  that  one-half  of  this  duty 
should  be  set  apart  for  the  support  of  schools.  The  lower 
house  desired,  instead,  that  the  money  arising  on  ordinary 
licenses  should  go  toward  that  end.  But  the  lord  pro- 
prietor insisted  that  he  and  not  the  people  had  a  right  to 
that  license  money  ;  and  so  the  lower  house  reluctantly 
assented  to  his  proposal  with  respect  to  the  application  of 
the  tobacco  duty. 

The  proceeds  of  the  several  duties  were  allowed  to 
accumulate  until  the  year  1723,  when,  at  last,  the  Assem- 
bly passed  an  act  for  founding  one  school  in  each  county. 
Fifty  acres  of  woodland  and  fifty  acres  of  pasture  land 
were  to  be  purchased  for  each  school.  The  schoolmaster 
i  L.  H.  J.,  June  5,  1719.  2  Ibid.,  April,  1720. 


THE   SOCIAL   DEVELOPMENT  141 

was  to  have  the  use  of  the  plantation,  but  was  to  raise  no 
tobacco  on  it ;  and  besides  this  the  act  gave  him  but 
<£20  per  annum.  He  was  to  teach  grammar,  writing,  and 
mathematics. 

But  with  the  exception  of  those  in  Kent  and  Queen 
Anne's  counties  these  schools  were  not  a  success.  They 
suffered  from  want  of  public  interest,  and  from  poorly- 
paid  and  incompetent  teachers.  Less  than  four  years 
after  they  had  been  established  it  was  necessary  to  pre- 
scribe a  penalty  for  refusing  to  serve  as  a  school  officer. 
The  one  in  Cecil  County  was  so  complete  a  failure  that  no 
trace  of  it  is  left.  In  the  year  1745  the  officers  of  the  one 
in  Talbot  County  offered  a  reward  of  £5  currency  for  the 
capture  of  their  Irish  schoolmaster,  who  had  run  away 
with  two  geldings  and  a  negro  slave.1  In  the  year  1750 
the  lower  house  declared  that  those  schools  were  a  failure. 
In  the  year  1763  Governor  Sharpe  wrote  as  follows,  "  It  is 
really  to  be.  lamented  that  while  such  great  things  are 
done  for  the  support  of  colleges  and  academies  in  the 
neighboring  colonies,  there  is  not  in  this  even  one  good 
grammar  school."  2 

After  it  was  so  generally  agreed  that  the  county  schools 
in  no  way  answered  the  end  for  which  they  had  been  es- 
tablished, a  movement  was  made  to  sell  the  property 
invested  in  them  and  to  apply  the  proceeds  of  the  sale,  as 
well  as  the  proceeds  of  the  duties  by  which  they  had  been 
maintained,  toward  the  founding  and  the  maintenance  of 
two  seminaries ;  that  is,  King  William's  School  at  An- 
napolis was  to  be  made  a  seminary,  the  head-master  of 
which  was  to  be  a  master  of  arts  from  Cambridge  ;  while, 
on  the  eastern  shore,  another  seminary  was  to  be  founded, 
the  head-master  of  which  was  to  be  a  master  of  arts  from 

1  Maryland  Gazette,  August  16,  1745. 

2  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  115. 


142  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

Oxford.  Each  institution  was  to  be  a  college  with  a 
preparatory  department.1  This  plan  was  an  impracticable 
one.  The  funds  which  were  to  be  provided  would  not 
have  been  large  enough  for  even  one  such  institution,  and 
the  second  one  was  suggested  by  nothing  but  rivalry 
between  the  two  shores.  After  the  bill  for  carrying  the 
plan  into  execution  had  been  published,  it  was  never  again 
brought  before  the  Assembly. 

Four  years  later,  however,  the  governor  again  urged  that 
something  be  done.  This  time  the  lower  house,  by  a  vote  of 
thirty-eight  to  thirteen,  resolved  that  the  county  school  fund 
should  be  applied  toward  the  founding  of  one  seminary. 
That  house  also  ordered  one  of  its  committees  to  consider 
further  ways  and  means  of  accomplishing  the  desired  end.2 
But  after  the  committee  had  proposed  the  money  arising 
from  licensing  ferries  and  from  an  import  duty  of  one 
penny  per  gallon  on  rum  and  wine,  the  matter  was  referred 
for  further  consideration  to  the  next  Assembly,  and  noth- 
ing more  was  heard  of  it  for  several  years. 

By  1761  the  majority  in  favor  of  selling  the  county 
school  property  was  reduced ;  and  a  motion  of  that  year, 
to  apply  the  county  sch#@l  fund  and  the  proceeds  of  a 
proposed  tax  on  carriage  wheels  and  bachelors  toward 
founding  a  college,  was  lost.3  But  there  was  at  this  time 
in  the  city  of  Annapolis,  on  a  lot  of  four  acres,  a  vacant 
and  unfinished  house,  which  had  originally  been  intended 
for  the  governor's  mansion.  After  the  money  appropri- 
ated for  the  erection  of  it  had  been  expended,  the  building 
was  not  yet  enclosed  ;  and  as  the  lower  house  would  ap- 
propriate no  more  for  that  end,  it  had,  up  to  this  time, 
stood  in  that  unfinished  condition  for  seventeen  years. 

1  Maryland  Gazette,  August  1,  1750. 

2  L.  H.  J.,  May  16  and  21,  1754. 

8  Ibid.,  April  30  and  May  5,  1761. 


THE   SOCIAL   DEVELOPMENT  143 

Furthermore,  it  has  been  observed  that  back  in  Governor 
Hart's  administration  the  lower  house  asked  that  the 
money  arising  on  ordinary  licenses  should  be  applied 
toward  the  support  of  schools.  Although  for  the  past 
fifteen  years  the  lord  proprietor  had  permitted  that  money 
to  be  used  for  public  purposes,  —  wholly  military,  —  the 
question  as  to  who  had  a  right  to  it  was  yet  undetermined. 
These  were  the  circumstances  under  which  the  lower 
house  now  proposed  to  complete  the  unfinished  executive 
mansion  for  a  college  hall  and  to  apply  the  ordinary- 
license  money,  together  with  the  proceeds  of  an  import 
duty  on  wine  and  of  a  tax  on  carriage  wheels,  bachelors, 
card  tables,  and  billiard  tables,  toward  the  maintenance  of 
the  college.1  As  the  governor  and  a  majority  of  the 
upper  house  felt  that  the  lord  proprietor  had  no  valid  claim 
to  the  ordinary-license  money,  they  privately  approved 
of  this  plan.2  But  upon  Governor  Sharpe's  submitting  it 
to  the  lord  proprietor's  secretary,  that  gentleman,  with  a 
mind  ordinarily  chaotic,  flew  into  a  passion,  and  so  much 
heat  was  generated  that  it  seems  to  have  melted  some  of 
his  speech.  Thus,  he  said :  "  Can  they  constitutionally 
do  it,  to  take  his  Lordship's  property  given  with  generos- 
ity and  a  sufficient  tract  of  land  whereon  the  House  Gov- 
ernor's and  Proprietor's  House  stands  by  their  request 
yielded  to  and  given  and  not  finished  by  them  from  con- 
tumely, have  they  any  plea  to  shittlecock  his  Lordship's 
property  when  or  how  they  please  ?  feign  charity,  a  school 
academy,  an  unnecessary  expense  during  the  infancy  of 
the  colony,  before  ignorance  in  general  by  foundations  to 
improve  by  Grammar  and  common  Arithmetic  and  this 
their  scheme  with  affrontery  without  any  remonstrance  to 
yield  to  his  Complyance  their  Lord  Paramount,  send  to 

!L.  H.  J.,  May  6,  1761. 

2  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  125,  126. 


144  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

him  for  his  right  ad  libitum  with  us,  the  essence  of  your 
Legislature  and  administration  of  your  government  I  con- 
ceived such  conduct  with  violence  assumed  has  nor  can 
have  any  tendency  but  that  of  annihilating  with  him  all 
right,  Honor,  and  Dignity,  rendering  him  low  and  con- 
temptible with  reproach  not  fit  to  govern."1 

So  failed  another  attempt  to  found  a  college.  Only  a 
few  years  later  the  lord  proprietor  was  forced  to  give  up 
his  claim  to  the  ordinary-license  money,  and  very  soon 
after  the  overthrow  of  his  government  the  long-neglected 
house  was  completed  for  a  college  hall.  But,  until  that 
overthrow,  the  only  advance  along  educational  lines  was 
that  which  was  begun  in  the  year  1772  when  some  free- 
men of  the  counties  of  St.  Mary's,  Calvert,  Charles,  and 
Prince  George's  proposed  that  the  county  schools  of  those 
four  counties  should  be  united.2  Subscriptions  were  raised 
for  further  increasing  the  funds  ;  and  although  this  move- 
ment lost  the  support  of  Calvert  County,  it  resulted  in  the 
founding,  in  the  year  1774,  of  Charlotte  Hall  at  Cool 
Springs  in  St.  Mary's  County.3 

The  facilities  which  the  province  of  Maryland  offered 
for  obtaining  an  education  were,  therefore,  decidedly  poor. 
The  county  schools  amounted  to  little  or  nothing.  The 
parish  schools  seem  to  have  been  equally  bad.  Upon  the 
death  of  Benedict  Leonard  Calvert,  in  the  year  1730,  King 
William's  School  was  left  a  donation  amounting  to  £40 
per  annum  ;  and  yet  the  instruction  given  in  that  school 
does  not  seem  to  have  risen  to  any  high  degree  of  excel- 
lence. There  was  no  college.  And  probably  the  best 
school  in  the  province  was  the  private  one  for  teaching 
Latin  and  Greek,  which  was  kept  by  Rev.  Thomas  Cra- 

1  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  146. 

2  Maryland  Gazette,  July  30,  November  5,  1772. 
s  Laws  of  1774. 


THE   SOCIAL   DEVELOPMENT  145 

dock  of  Baltimore  County.  The  writer  of  an  article 
published  in  the  Maryland  Gazette,  in  the  year  1773,  ex- 
pressed his  regret  for  the  want  of  learning  in  the  follow- 
ing words  :  "  Even  in  private  affairs  the  inconveniences 
and  mischiefs  flowing  from  the  ignorance  and  barbarism 
of  the  commonality  are  severely  felt  by  society.  But 
these  are  trifles  light  as  air  when  compared  to  the  more 
fatal  errors,  which  ma}'  be  committed  in  the  public  walks 
of  life,  through  a  shameful  deficiency  of  general  knowl- 
edge."1 

Nevertheless,  eighteenth  century  Maryland  had  her 
educated  men.  The  ceaseless  agitation  of  the  educational 
question  would  indicate  this.  Some  received  their  educa- 
tion in  the  mother  country  before  coming  to  the  province. 
As  early  as  the  year  1754  there  were  at  least  one  hun- 
dred Maryland  students  in  the  academy  at  Philadelphia.2 
Others  attended  the  college  of  William  and  Mary  in  Vir- 
ginia. The  sons  of  the  most  wealthy  Protestants  were 
sent  to  the  universities  of  England,  while  several  of  the 
Catholic  youths  were  educated  in  France. 

The  consequence  was  that  the  favored  few  had  better 
educational  advantages  than  the  united  efforts  of  the 
province  could  have  provided.  Those  who  were  educated 
in  Philadelphia  were  surrounded  by  an  atmosphere  in 
which  democratic  and  liberty -loving  sentiments  were 
especially  strong.  Moreover,  the  spirit  of  rivalry  among 
the  educated  Marylanders  was  more  vigorous  than  it 
would  have  been  had  they  all  been  taught  in  the  same 
school. 

But  what  went  still  further  toward  making  the  educated 
men  a  power  in  political  affairs  was  the  fact  that  the  most 
of  them  were  lawyers.  The  people  were  strongly  inclined 
to  litigation  ;  but  the  clergy  of  the  Established  Church  were 

1  Maryland  Gazette,  November  4,  1773.         2  Ibid.,  March  21,  1754. 

L 


146  MARYLAND   AS    A    PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

in  disrepute  ;  country  life  in  a  healthful  climate  caused 
the  physician  to  be  little  in  demand  ;  the  teacher  was 
given  no  chance  ;  and  the  country  was  too  young  for 
literature  and  art.  As  it  was  for  the  interest  of  the  law- 
yer to  stand  up  for  the  political  rights  of  the  people,  it 
was  natural  that  many  of  that  profession  should  'find  their 
way  into  the  lower  house  of  Assembly.  In  the  course  of 
the  last  controversy  between  the  two  houses,  the  govern- 
ment party  denounced  the  lawyers  in  strong  terms  and 
ascribed  the  whole  trouble  to  the  presence  of  so  large  a 
number  of  them  in  the  lower  house.  One  of  the  party,  in 
particular,  was  speaking  of  the  lawyers  when  he  said: 
"To  gain  the  voice  of  the  people,  to  mislead  their  judg- 
ment, and  to  render  them  the  tools  wherewith  to  execute 
their  vile  and  infamous  purposes  they  put  on  the  mask  of 
patriotism  ;  declare  vehemently  against  public  measures  ; 
stigmatize  their  rulers  by  the  most  unjust  and  villanous 
accusations,  and  set  themselves  up  as  the  only  men  capa- 
ble of  saving  or  reforming  the  state.  The  most  minute 
errors  in  administration  are  construed  into  premeditated 
designs  against  the  liberties  of  the  people  ;  they  prognos- 
ticate dangers  which  they  do  not  believe  ;  and  seem  to 
dread  events,  they  are  conscious,  can  never  happen. " x  But 
the  more  impartial  judge  of  their  conduct  said  :  "  They 
anticipate  the  evil,  and  judge  of  the  pressure  of  the  griev- 
ance by  the  badness  of  the  principle.  They  augur  mis- 
government  at  a  distance,  and  snuff  the  approach  of 
tyranny  in  every  tainted  breeze." 

Finally,  if  the  ignorance  of  the  common  people  enabled 
the  lawyers  to  have  greater  power  over  them,  the  wealth 
and  luxury  enjoyed  by  the  public  officers  made  those  com- 
mon people  more  suspicious  of  the  government  and  still 
further  strengthened  the  alliance  between  the  lawyers  and 

1  Maryland  Gazette,  May  13,  1773. 


THE   SOCIAL   DEVELOPMENT  147 

the  people.  It  was  no  difficult  matter,  therefore,  to  make 
them  feel  that  they  were  being  fleeced  in  order  to  enable 
their  rulers  to  live  with  affluence  in  a  fashionable  society. 
The  city  of  Annapolis  was  by  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century  a  social  centre  of  some  importance.  The  French 
hairdresser  was  in  good  demand.  The  high  headgear  of 
the  ladies,  the  powdered  periwigs  of  the  gentlemen,  the 
rich  laces,  silks,  velvets,  and  gay  colored  costumes  of  both 
ladies  and  gentlemen  followed  closely  the  latest  fashions 
of  the  mother  country,  and,  with  an  unsparing  use  of  the 
stay,  gave  to  social  circles  a  dignified  and  courtly  charm. 
Chariots  of  rare  elegance,  the  coach  and  four,  and  the 
sedan  chair  moved  along  the  highways.  The  finest  resi- 
dences have  been  described  as  remarkable  for  their  large 
size  and  striking  appearance.  The  tables  of  the  most 
wealthy  were  adorned  with  plate  and  cut  glass,  and  even 
profusely  provided  with  choice  wines,  meats,  and  dainties. 
The  members  of  this  society  were  cultured,  refined,  and 
polished.  Special  mention  of  the  charm  of  the  ladies  on 
social  occasions  has  been  made  by  more  than  one  eye-wit- 
ness. In  the  year  1770,  one  of  those  witnesses  wrote, 
"  I  am  persuaded  there  is  not  a  towrn  in  England  of  the 
same  size  as  Annapolis,  which  can  boast  a  greater  number 
of  fashionable  and  handsome  women,  and  were  I  not  satis- 
fied to  the  contrary,  I  should  suppose  that  the  majority  of 
our  belles  possessed  every  advantage  of  a  long  and  familiar 
intercourse  with  the  manners  and  habits  of  London."1 
Three  years  later  the  same  witness  again  wrote  :  "  It  is 
but  justice  to  confess  that  the  American  ladies  possess  a 
natural  ease  and  elegance  in  the  whole  of  their  deport- 
ment ;  and  that  while  they  assiduously  cultivate  external 
accomplishments,  they  are  still  anxiously  attentive  to  the 
more  important  embellishments  of  the  mind.     In  conver- 

lEddis,  p.  31. 


148          MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

sation  they  are  generally  animated  and  entertaining,  and 
deliver  their  sentiments  with  affability  and  propriety." 

Nor  was  there  a  want  of  opportunity  for  social  display. 
There  were  several  fashionable  balls  each  winter,  and 
there  were  similar  balls  on  a  few  state  occasions.  Further- 
more, the  theatre  became  so  great  a  success  as  to  arouse 
no  little  enthusiasm.  The  wits  of  two  literary  clubs  pro- 
voked pleasing  smiles,  if  not  loud  laughter.  The  pleas- 
ures of  the  fox  hunt  were  seemingly  boundless.  With 
respect  to  horse  racing  one  wrote  :  "  Our  races,  which  are 
just  concluded,  continued  four  days,  and  afforded  excellent 
amusement  to  those  who  are  attached  to  the  pleasures  of 
the  turf  ;  and  surprising  as  it  may  appear,  I  assure  you 
there  are  few  meetings  in  England  better  attended  or 
where  more  capital  horses  are  exhibited.  In  order  to 
encourage  the  breed  of  this  noble  animal,  a  jocky  club  has 
been  instituted,  consisting  of  many  principal  gentlemen, 
in  this  and  the  adjacent  provinces,  many  of  whom  have 
imported  from  Britain,  at  a  very  great  expense,  horses  of 
high  reputation." * 

By  the  time  this  society  had  become  truly  magnificent 
for  so  young  a  country  it  had  come  to  pass  that  the 
members  of  one  family  were  holding  most  of  the  principal 
offices  below  the  governor  :  the  governor  was  a  brother-inr 
law  of  the  lord  proprietor  ;  the  governor  and  the  members 
of  that  one  family  were  leaders  in  society  ;  and,  at  the 
same  time,  it  was  known  that  in  addition  to  the  large  sum 
of  money  which  was  yearly  drained  from  the  province  to 
pay  the  lord  proprietor  his  territorial  revenue,  the  prin- 
cipal office-holders  were  obliged  to  give  the  lord  proprie- 
tor's secretary,  who  resided  in  England,  £600  sterling  per 
annum  out  of  their  income. 

Before  the  end  of  the  proprietary  period,  therefore,  the 

i  Eddis,  pp.  106,  107. 


THE   SOCIAL   DEVELOPMENT  149 

facilities  for  intercourse  had  been  provided,  the  extremes 
of  social  classes  had  been  far  extended,  and  a  large  part 
of  the  educated  class  was  arousing  and  directing  the 
opposition  of  the  ignorant  commonalty  against  a  small 
body  of  office-holders  and  society  leaders  that  were  closely 
united  by  the  ties  of  kinship. 


PART   II 
GOVERNMENT 


CHAPTER  I 

THE   EXECUTIVE 

In  the  light  of  what  has  thus  far  been  presented,  the 
organization  and  the  development  of  the  government  may 
now  be  made  intelligible.  The  analysis  of  the  charter 
has  shown  that  the  lord  proprietor  was  originally  placed 
at  the  fountain  head  of  every  department  of  government. 
To  him  alone  was  power  granted  by  the  king. .  He  was 
given  the  sole  right  of  creating  offices,  of  appointing 
officers,  of  delegating  to  each  such  powers  as  he  deemed 
expedient,  and  of  directing  them,  from  time  to  time,  in 
the  performance  of  their  duties. 

Immediately  under  the  lord  proprietor  was,  first,  the 
governor,  and  then  the  other  great  executive  officers,  all 
serving  in  response  to  their  lord's  appointment  during  his 
pleasure.  Farther  down  the  scale  were  the  minor  officers, 
usually  appointed  and  instructed  by  some  one  of  their 
immediate  superiors,  but,  likewise,  appointed  only  during 
pleasure.  In  this  manner,  as  in  any  real  kingdom,  power 
was  transmitted  from  above  downward,  and  all  officers 
kept  dependent  on  the  lord  proprietor. 

With  the  exception  of  the  years  from  1675  to  1684,  and 
the  year  1732-33,  the  lord  proprietor  and  his  secretary 
resided  in  England.  But  all  the  other  officers  resided 
in  the  province.  The  greatest  of  them  were  the  gov- 
ernor and  chancellor,  the  members  of  the  council  of  state, 
the  secretary,  the  commissary  general,  the  two  judges  of 
the  land  office,  and  the  attorney  general.     Chief  among  the 

153 


154  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

minor  officers  were  a  sheriff,  a  deputy  commissary,  several 
justices,  and  a  clerk  for  each  county,  a  treasurer  for  each 
shore,  and  a  naval  officer  for  each  of  five  districts.  Still 
lower  in  rank  were  the  constable  of  the  hundred,  and  the 
overseer  of  the  highway  precinct. 

During  the  entire  proprietary  period,  six  persons  bore 
in  succession  the  title  of  lord  proprietor.  But  the  third 
and  the  last  bore  it  for  so  short  a  time  that  it  is  not  worth 
while  to  make  mention  of  them  here.  The  other  four 
were  :  Cecilius  Calvert,  1632  to  1675  ;  Charles  Calvert, 
1675  to  1715  ;  Charles  Calvert,  1715  to  1751  ;  and  Fred- 
erick Calvert,  1751  to  1773. 

The  father  of  Cecilius  was  the  first  Lord  Baltimore, 
who,  at  one  time,  was  a  chief  secretary  of  state  under 
James  I  and  highly  esteemed  by  Robert  Cecil  for  his 
knowledge  and  penetration  into  state  affairs.  The  wife 
of  Cecilius  was  the  eldest  daughter  of  Thomas  Arundel, 
one  of  the  most  influential  of  the  Roman  Catholic  noble- 
men in  England.  In  the  year  1634  Cecilius  became  a 
member  of  Parliament.  Both  the  form  and  the  contents 
of  his  several  commissions  and  instructions  relative  to  the 
government  of  Maryland  indicate  that  he  was  a  trained 
administrator,  well  versed  in  English  law.  On  several 
occasions  his  correspondence  and  instructions  show  his 
firmness  ;  and  yet,  while  he  never  was  disposed  to  make 
unnecessary  concessions,  he  was  so  discreet  and  so  politic 
that  he  yielded  when  by  so  doing  he  might  prevent  a 
dangerous  uprising.  Although  he  never  visited  the  prov- 
ince, he  was  deeply  interested  not  only  in  the  success  of 
its  government,  but  in  its  industrial  development.  It  was 
the  object  of  his  careful  thought  and  attention  ;  and  it 
has  been  estimated  that  he  expended  upon  it,  from  time 
to  time,  £40,000  sterling,  from  which  he  could  have  re- 
ceived but  small  returns. 


THE   EXECUTIVE  155 

Charles,  the  second  lord  proprietor,  had  been  governor 
of  the  province  fourteen  years  before  succeeding  his 
father,  Cecilius ;  and  with  the  exception  of  a  visit  to  Eng- 
land in  the  year  1676,  he  resided  in  the  province  nearly 
nine  years  after  becoming  lord  proprietor.  He  appears  to 
have  given  his  father  much  satisfaction  during  his  service 
as  governor.  He  certainly  was  a  busy,  industrious  man, 
with  a  strong  personality  and  considerable  hard  business 
tact.  But  he  was  irritable,  contentious,  tenacious,  greedy 
of  private  gain,  and  more  interested  in  introducing  slave 
labor  than  in  elevating  the  level  of  humanity  by  encour- 
aging such  institutions  as  schools  and  churches.  He  was 
at  one  time  annoyed  by  a  report  that  he  was  so  stingy  as 
to  be  in  danger  of  starving.  He  was  intent  upon  sup- 
pressing all  opposition,  but  not  being  a  leader  of  men  he 
endeavored  to  accomplish  his  end  by  force  and  intrigue. 
As  a  consequence  of  succeeding  his  uncle,  Philip  Calvert, 
as  governor  soon  after  the  suppression  of  the  Fendall 
rebellion,  a  bitter  jealousy  arose  between  nephew  and 
uncle,  so  that  at  one  time  Charles  complained  that 
Philip  was  trying  to  draw  the  affections  of  the  people 
from  him.1  Charles  married  the  widow  of  Secretary 
Henry  Sewall,  to  whom  had  been  granted  two  manors  : 
one  of  five  thousand  acres,  and  another  of  one  thousand 
acres  ;  and  the  five  children  of  the  widow  seem  to  have 
been  married  with  the  design  of  gaining  for  the  gov- 
ernment the  strongest  possible  support  that  could  be 
based  on  kinship.2  He,  however,  failed  to  govern  suc- 
cessfully and  aroused  such  opposition  that  the  govern- 
ment was  taken  from  him.  Yet  after  its  loss  he  continued 
to  his  last  years  to  contend  vigorously  for  his  territorial 
rights. 

1  Calvert  Papers,  No.  1,  p.  251. 

2  Sparks,  "  Causes  of  the  Maryland  Revolution  of  1689." 


156  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

Charles,  the  fourth  lord  proprietor,  bore  a  tarnished 
reputation  in  England  because  of  the  part  he  played  in 
disgraceful  intrigues  with  the  Prince  of  Wales.  Yet 
during  a  tour  on  the  Continent  he  made  a  favorable  im- 
pression on  a  man  of  no  less  renown  than  Frederick  the 
Great.  In  1734  he  became  a  member  of  Parliament  and 
later  was  appointed  Junior  Lord  of  the  Admiralty.  He 
was  doubtless  a  man  of  many  accomplishments,  easy  and 
graceful  in  speech  and  general  bearing.  But  his  intellect 
was  shallow,  and  he  greatly  overestimated  his  own  impor- 
tance. He  became  lord  proprietor  when  he  was  but  six- 
teen years  of  age  ;  and  although  he  had  a  guardian,  the 
executive  within  the  province  was  weaker  and  more  neg- 
lected during  his  administration  than  at  any  other  time. 
The  members  of  the  council  of  state  were  left  with  insuf- 
ficient reward  for  their  services.  Until  the  appointment 
of  Governor  Bladen,  in  1742,  the  authority  delegated  to 
the  governor  was  restricted  only  to  a  very  limited  extent ; 
and  the  correspondence  between  governor  and  lord  pro- 
prietor seems  to  have  been  surprisingly  small  in  amount. 
Nevertheless,  Charles  was  tenacious  of  his  rights  and  un- 
willing to  make  any  compromise  until  after  a  contest  had 
been  long  continued.  His  failure  to  instruct  the  gov- 
ernor was  in  part  made  up  by  his  own  veto  of  several 
acts  of  assembly,  until  the  opposition,  aroused  in  conse- 
quence of  these,  made  it  dangerous  for  him  to  exercise 
that  right.  Finally,  during  his  visit  to  the  province  in 
1732-33,  mainly  for  the  purpose  of  settling  the  boundary 
dispute  with  the  Penns,  he  was  quite  successful  in  remov- 
ing the  disorder  into  which  the  government  had  fallen  ; 
and  his  liberal  offer  then  first  made  to  the  Palatines 
resulted  in  the  beginning  of  the  larger  development  of 
the  province. 

Frederick,  the  fifth  lord  proprietor,  was  the  most  con- 


THE    EXECUTIVE  157 

ceited  of  them  all,  yet  he  was  a  man  -of  still  less  worth 
than  his  immediate  predecessor.  His  aspirations  to  be  an 
author  made  him  a  laughing  stock.  He  had  the  reputa- 
tion of  being  a  libertine.  In  1768  he  was  indicted  for  an 
infamous  crime.  Although  justly  acquitted,  the  charge 
seems  to  have  banished  from  the  province  what  little 
respect  for  him  had  lingered  there.  He  seemed  desirous 
of  getting  all  the  money  he  could  from  the  province  in 
order  that  he  might  win  and  retain,  by  means  of  that  / 
money,  the  flattery  of  those  who  like  himself  were  seek-^ 
ing  the  ephemeral  pleasures  of  life.  Still,  his  desire  to 
avoid  the  charge  of  oppressing  his  Maryland  tenants 
caused  him  to  be  somewhat  lenient  and  to  make  conces- 
sions. He  was  moderate,  smooth,  clear,  and,  occasionally, 
somewhat  ingenious  in  his  messages  to  the  governor  and 
the  Assembly.  But  with  the  exception  of  providing 
some  of  his  favorites  with  lucrative  appointments,  he 
seems  to  have  been  little  interested  in  affairs  pertaining 
solely  to  the  government,  and  left  them  largely  to  the 
care  of  his  secretary,  who,  until  1766,  was  his  uncle, 
Cecilius  Calvert,  and  after  that,  Hugh  Hamersly. 

Secretary  Calvert,  to  whom  was  intrusted  so  largely 
the  proprietary  interests,  at  once  endeavored  to  make  him- 
self more  important  than  the  governor.  He  was  a  man 
whose  active  mind  exhibited  a  rare  mixture  of  shrewdness 
and  confused  thinking  ;  and  the  opposition  of  the  anti-gov- 
ernment party  occasionally  kindled  his  wrath,  or  aroused 
his  indignation  to  a  high  pitch.  The  large  interference 
of  Frederick  in  making  appointments,  and  the  desire  of 
Secretary  Calvert  to  exercise  his  authority,  resulted  in  too 
great  a  reduction  of  the  governor's  patronage  and  power. 
However,  after  Secretary  Calvert  had  been  succeeded  by 
Secretary  Hamersly,  and  Governor  Sharpe  by  Governor 
Eden,  that  evil  was  removed,  because  the  governor  was 


158  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

then  bound  to  the  lord  proprietor  by  as  close  a  tie  of  kin- 
ship as  was  the  secretary. 

During  the  few  years  when  the  lord  proprietor  was  in 
the  province,  he  administered  the  government  in  person ; 
but  at  other  times  a  governor,  as  his  representative,  was 
the  chief  administrator  of  that  government.  According 
to  the  original  nature  of  the  proprietary  system,  the  gov- 
ernor was  to  be  kept  entirely  dependent  on  his  chief,  while 
all  other  officers  were  to  be  subservient  to  both  lord  pro- 
prietor and  governor.  The  governor  was  appointed  only 
during  the  pleasure  of  his  chief,  who  instructed  him  from 
time  to  time  in  the  performance  of  his  duties.  From  the 
year  1648  he  was  made  to  swear  that  he  would  accept  no 
office,  relating  to  the  government  of  the  province,  from 
any  other  person  or  authority  than  that  of  the  lord  pro- 
prietor, whom  he  also  swore  to  counsel  and  advise  as  occa- 
sion should  require  for  the  best  interests  of  the  province.1 
The  journals  of  both  houses  of  Assembly,  as  well  as  an 
account  of  all  other  important  transactions  of  the  govern- 
ment, the  governor  was  expected  to  transmit  to  the  lord 
proprietor. 

It  was,  however,  not  entirely  through  the  governor  that 
the  lord  proprietor  exercised  his  control  over  the  govern- 
ment. For  the  lord  proprietor  not  only  reserved  to  him- 
self the  privilege  of  appointing  the  members  of  the  council, 
the  commissary  general,  the  judges  of  the  land  office,  and 
the  attorney  general,  but  he  defined  their  powers  and 
duties,  occasionally  gave  instructions  to  them,  and  received 
information  from  them  concerning  the  affairs  of  the  prov- 
ince. At  one  time  he  valued  such  information  received 
from  the  attorney  general  more  than  that  received  from  the 
governor.2     Furthermore,  on   critical  occasions,  or  when- 

i  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1636  to  1667,  p.  209  et  seq. 
2  Dulany  Papers. 


THE   EXECUTIVE  159 

ever  some  great  controversy  arose,  important  communica- 
tions passed  between  the  lord  proprietor  on  the  one  side, 
and  the  lower  house,  both  houses  conjointly,  or  the  gov- 
ernor and  council  on  the  other.  Finally,  the  lord  proprie- 
tor reserved  the  right  of  vetoing  any  act  of  assembly, 
even  after  it  had  been  assented  to  by  the  governor. 

On  the  other  hand,  after  the  restoration  of  the  proprie- 
tary government  in  1715,  the  governor  was  made  respon- 
sible, not  only  to  the  lord  proprietor,  but  also,  to  some 
extent  to  the  crown.  For  from  that  time  the  lord  pro- 
prietor's appointment  of  a  governor  had  to  meet  the 
approval  of  the  crown.  From  that  time,  also,  the  gov- 
ernor was  instructed  in  detail  by  the  crown,  with  respect 
to  the  enforcement  of  the  laws  of  trade,  and  put  under 
oath  and  bond  to  observe  such  instructions  ;  and  during 
the  intercolonial  wars  the  governor  received  directions 
from  the  home  government  with  respect  to  the  raising  of 
men  and  supplies. 

Nevertheless,  although  the  governor  was  made  so  depend- 
ent on  the  lord  proprietor,  although  the  proprietor  exercised 
his  powers  through  other  channels  than  that  of  the  gov- 
ernor, and  although  the  governor  became  in  a  measure 
responsible  to  the  crown,  it  was  mainly  to  the  governor 
that  the  proprietor  delegated  all  those  monarchical  powers 
which  the  charter  had  conferred  on  himself.  It  was  also 
mainly  to  the  governor  that  the  proprietor  issued  his 
instructions. 

As  military  chief  the  governor  was  made  lieutenant  gen- 
eral and  admiral,  and  empowered  to  do  whatever  was  nec- 
essary for  the  defence  of  the  province  or  the  suppression 
of  rebellion.  He  was,  therefore,  authorized  to  be  the 
military  organizer  and  commander  both  by  land  and  by 
sea. 

As  chancellor,  he  was  keeper  of  the  proprietor's  seal,  and 


160  MARYLAND   AS    A   PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

issued  all  grants  of  land,  all  commissions  for  office,  all 
pardons,  licenses,  writs,  and  proclamations. 

As  chief  magistrate,  he  was  given  power  to  appoint  all 
necessary  officers  for  the  preservation  of  the  peace  and 
the  administration  of  justice,  power  to  issue  and  enforce 
ordinances,  power  to  establish  ports,  markets,  and  fairs, 
power  to  pardon  offences  (except  for  high  treason)  and 
remit  fines,  and,  finally,  power  to  execute  all  other  meas- 
ures necessary  to  good  government. 

As  the  head  or  constituent  part  of  the  legislature,  he 
could  summon  the  freemen  to  legislative  Assembly,  pre- 
pare laws  for  the  consideration  of  that  Assembly,  assent 
to  bills  and  enact  them  into  laws  in  the  lord  proprietor's 
name,  and  adjourn,  prorogue,  and  dissolve  the  Assembly. 

And  as  chief  justice  during  the  first  proprietary  period, 
he  played  an  important  role  in  the  hearing,  judging,  and 
awarding  execution  in  both  civil  and  criminal  cases.1 

Previous  to  the  Revolution  of  1689,  the  governor  was 
authorized  to  appoint  a  substitute  at  his  death  or  during 
his  necessary  absence  from  the  province  ;  and  that  author- 
ity was  exercised  on  several  occasions.  But  after  1715 
the  president  of  the  council  was  to  serve  as  substitute 
when  there  was  no  governor,  which,  however,  happened 
but  once,  and  then  only  from  May,  1752,  until  March, 
1753. 

Within  the  province  the  governor  was,  therefore,  the 
centre  from  which  proceeded  the  military,  the  administra- 
tive, and  the  judicial  authority,  and,  in  large  measure,  also, 
the  legislative  activity. 

Although  the  lord  proprietor  reserved  to  himself  the 
right  of  appointing  the  members  of  the  council  of  state 
and  the  other  leading  officers,  those  appointments  were 
usually  made  in  accordance  with  the  governor's  recom- 

i Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1636  to  1667,  pp.  49,  135,  139,  323. 


THE   EXECUTIVE  161 

mendations.  But  after  the  threatening  clamor  of  the 
opposition  had  caused  the  lord  proprietor  to  refrain  from 
exercising  his  veto  power,  his  instructions  bound  the 
governor  much  more  closely  until  the  administration  of 
Governor  Eden. 

Until  after  1732  the  governor  was  usually  allowed  wide 
discretion.  His  instructions  were,  in  large  measure,  con- 
fined to  directions  relating  to  territorial  affairs  and  the 
appointment  of  officers,  or  forbade  him  to  assent  to  any 
act  that  would  be  an  encroachment  on  the  lord  proprie^ 
tor's  prerogative,  that  would  alter  the  constitution  of  an 
office,  or  that  would  interfere  with  some  favorite  law. 

But  in  1743  the  lord  proprietor  instructed  Governor 
Bladen  to  assent  to  no  law  that  might  in  any  manner 
weaken  the  power  and  authority  of  the  government,  stated 
the  conditions  that  should  be  complied  with  before  he 
should  assent  to  certain  acts,  and,  in  conclusion,  said, 
"  And  if  anything  of  very  great  consequence  comes  under 
your  consideration,  suspend  doing  anything  till  you  have 
acquainted  me  with  it  and  received  my  directions."1 
Besides  the  numerous  special  instructions  sent  to  Gov- 
ernor Sharpe  his  standing  instructions  directed  :  that  he 
should  recommend  for  vacancies  in  the  council,  but  make 
no  appointment  until  the  number  was  below  seven,  and 
then  such  appointment  to  be  subject  to  the  approval  or 
disapproval  of  the  lord  proprietor  ;  that  his  appointment 
to  any  office  should  be  provisional  only  ;  that  he  should 
act  in  strict  conformity  with  the  charter  ;  that  he  should 
give  his  assent  to  no  act  of  an  unusual  or  extraordinary 
nature  and  importance  which  might  be  prejudicial  to  the 
lord  proprietor's  charter  prerogative  or  the  property  of 
his  Majesty's  subjects,  without  the  insertion  of  a  clause  to 
suspend  the  execution  of  the  act  till  the  lord  proprietor's 

C.  R.,  March  26,  1743. 


162  MARYLAND   AS   A    PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

assent  was  known  ;  that  he  should  suffer  no  act  to  pass 
that  introduced  the  English  statutes  in  gross,  that  inter- 
fered with  the  law  of  1702  providing  for  the  clergy,  or 
that  divided  a  parish  without  the  incumbent's  consent  ; 
that  he  should  suffer  no  private  act  to  pass  without  giving 
the  person  concerned  a  chance  to  make  his  defence  ;  that 
he  should  pass  no  act  relating  to  the  paper  currency 
without  a  suspending  clause  ;  that  only  one  matter  should 
be  provided  for  by  the  same  bill,  or  at  least  that  there 
should  be  no  riders,  or  any  provision  foreign  to  the  title  ; 
that  no  schoolmaster  should  be  allowed  to  teach  without 
having  first  obtained  the  lord  proprietor's  license  ;  that 
the  lord  proprietor  should  be  given  notice  of  every  va- 
cancy in  church  livings  ;  that  the  instructions  to  all  pre- 
vious governors  should  be  conformed  to  in  so  far  as  they 
were  not  altered  by  the  present  or  later  instructions  ;  that 
accounts  of  all  important  transactions  should  be  sent  to 
the  lord  proprietor  and  to  Secretary  Calvert,  and  that  the 
above  instructions  should  be  entered  in  the  council 
book.1 

But  after  it  had  become  clear  that  the  lord  proprietor 
was  seeking  to  prevent  undesirable  legislation  by  instruc- 
tions instead  of  by  exercising  his  veto  power,  the  oppo- 
sition was  not  to  be  silenced  by  such  a  change  of  tactics. 
Instead  of  the  veto,  the  instruction  became  the  object  of 
attack.  Moreover,  while  the  veto  had  necessarily  been 
made  public,  an  instruction  might,  in  many  cases,  be  kept 
private.  Hence  it  became  easy  to  ascribe  the  defeat  of 
any  favorite  bill  of  the  lower  house  to  some  "  unreason- 
able instruction  of  his  Lordship's."2  First,  the  anti-gov- 
ernment members  of  the  lower  house  murmured  among 
their  constituents   against    such  instructions.     Then,    in 

i  C.  R.,  March  17,  1753. 

2  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  52. 


THE   EXECUTIVE  163 

1762,  the  complaint  was  for  the  first  time  inserted  in  a 
message  from  the  lower  to  the  upper  house.  Finally,  in 
1769,  after  the  appointment  of  Eden  as  governor,  the  lower 
house  sent  a  long  statement  of  their  grievances  to  the  lord 
proprietor,  charged  him  with  having  prevented  Governor 
Sharpe  from  doing  what  he  thought  would  be  for  the  best 
interest  of  the  province,  and  expressed  the  hope  that  the 
authority  delegated  to  the  new  governor  might  be  "so 
unrestricted  as  to  permit  a  free  and  full  execution"  of 
his  abilities.1 

About  the  same  time,  or  a  little  earlier,  must  have  come 
to  the  province  the  charge  against  the  lord  proprietor  of 
the  infamous  crime,  and  nothing  more  seems  to  have  been 
heard  of  his  interference.  The  people  had,  in  reality, 
made  the  governor  supreme  over  all  except  themselves. 

The  proprietary  governors  were  :  Leonard  Calvert, 
1633  to  1647  ;  Thomas  Greene,  1647  to  1648  ;  William 
Stone,  1648  to  1654  ;  Josias  Fendall,  1657  to  1660  ;  Philip 
Calvert,  1660  to  1661  ;  Charles  Calvert,  1661  to  1684  (a 
board  of  four  deputy  governors  administered  the  govern- 
ment from  1684  to  1689) ;  John  Hart  1715  to  1720 ; 
Charles  Calvert,  1720  to  1727  ;  Benedict  Leonard  Cal- 
vert, 1727  to  1731  ;  Samuel  Ogle,  1731  to  1732,  1733  to 
1742,  1747  to  1752;  Thomas  Bladen,  1742  to  1747; 
Horatio  Sharpe,  1753  to  1769  ;  and  Robert  Eden,  1769  to 
1776. 

With  scarcely  any  loss,  those  governors  who  served 
previous  to  the  Revolution  of  1689  may  be  passed  over 
without  calling  special  attention  to  their  personal  traits 
or  to  the  principal  features  of  their  respective  adminis- 
trations. But  with  respect  to  those  who  served  after  the 
year  1715  such  special  attention  will  be  more  helpful. 

John  Hart  was  appointed   by  the  crown  in  the  year 

i  L.  H.  J.,  December  20,  1769. 


164  MARYLAND    AS    A    PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

1714,  and  upon  the  restoration  of  the  proprietary  govern- 
ment in  the  following  year,  the  lord  proprietor  continued 
him  in  his  station.  He  came  to  the  province  after  it  had 
been  without  a  governor  for  five  years,  and  while  it  was 
yet  suffering  from  the  effects  of  the  war  of  the  Spanish 
Succession.  He  is  deserving  of  praise  for  the  zeal  with 
which  he  strove  to  bring  about  a  better  condition  of  affairs. 
For  he  was  enthusiastic  in  recommending  that  provision 
should  be  made  for  education  and  for  church  discipline. 
He  earnestly  sought  an  improvement  in  the  condition  of 
the  tobacco  trade.  He  recommended  the  raising  of  hemp 
on  the  eastern  shore,  and  that  provision  should  be  made  in 
each  county  for  providing  the  province  with  more  native 
seamen.  He  called  attention  to  the  need  of  better  roads. 
He  also  made  a  proposition  for  building  a  governor's  house. 
But  the  general  ability  of  the  man  fell  far  short  of  his  zeal 
and  his  good  intentions,  and  as  a  consequence  very  little 
was  accomplished  in  the  way  of  realizing  his  cherished 
ideals.  On  the  other  hand,  his  quarrel  with  the  agent 
Carroll  has  already  been  noticed.  He  became  involved  in 
a  noisy  wrangle  with  the  leading  Catholics.  He  preferred 
the  royal  government  to  the  proprietary  government,  and 
seems  to  have  hoped  that  the  restoration  of  the  latter 
would  end  in  a  failure.  Yet  as  chancellor  he  incurred 
the  censure  of  the  home  government  by  taking  the  part 
of  the  people  against  Birchfield,  his  Majesty's  surveyor 
general  of  the  customs.  Although  he  had  many  warm 
admirers  among  the  more  zealous  Protestants,  yet,  as  a 
consequence  of  all  his  trouble  he  was  broken  down  in 
health  before  his  recall  in  the  year  1720. 

His  successor,  Charles  Calvert,  was  a  cousin  of  the  lord 
proprietor.  The  honesty  and  sincerity  of  this  governor 
in  protecting  the  lord  proprietor's  interests  are  not  ques- 
tioned.     But  he  suffered  from  bad  health  and  had  the 


THE   EXECUTIVE  165 

reputation  of  being  a  poor  manager  of  his  own  private 
affairs.  It  was  during  his  administration  that  the  bad 
condition  of  the  tobacco  industry  began  to  create  con- 
siderable commotion,  and  that  the  animosity  of  the  lower 
house  became  greatly  aroused  over  the  question  of  English 
statutes,  officers'  fees,  and  the  financial  support  of  the 
council.  While  that  animosity  was  directed  mainly 
against  the  upper  house,  the  governor's  speeches  to  the 
Assembly  —  in  which  he  was  mild  and  moderate  in  merely 
coaxing  the  lower  house  to  acknowledge  the  validity  of 
the  claims  of  the  lord  proprietor  and  the  upper  house  — 
had  but  little  effect.  He  was,  in  short,  a  weak  governor. 
Benedict  Leonard  Calvert  was  a  brother  of  the  lord 
proprietor.  But  he  proved  to  be  a  still  weaker  supporter 
of  the  proprietary  interests.  To  the  discontent  of  the 
last  administration  was  added  the  bitter  hostility  of  the 
clergy,  arising  out  of  controversies  with  respect  to  their 
support  and  discipline.  The  governor  felt  that  the  peo- 
ple were  getting  control  of  the  government,  while  his 
confession  of  his  own  lack  of  ability,  which  appeared  on 
several  occasions,  is  best  seen  in  the  concluding  words  of 
one  of  his  letters  to  the  lord  proprietor,  "  My  weak- 
nesses," he  says,  "  I  doubt  [not]  are  many,  but  sure  I  am 
they  cannot  outnumber  my  affections  to  your  service."1 
While  declaring  open  enmity  to  the  most  able  leaders, 
Dulany  and  Bordley,  he  seems  to  have  thrown  himself  on 
no  other  support  than  the  pride  of  his  ancestry.  For  to 
both  houses  of  Assembly  he  once  said  :  "  As  nothing  can 
be  more  shocking  to  an  ingenious  mind  than  a  distrust 
of  professed  sincerity,  so  I  hope  you  will  exert  that  peculiar 
characteristic  of  Englishmen  called  Good  Nature,  and  not 
be  mistrustful  of  me  because  I  am  your  Governor,  as  some 
persons  void  of  all  principle  would  without  doors  suggest. 
1  Calvert  Papers,  No.  2,  p.  80  et  seq. 


166  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

But  rather  believe  that  (as  I  have  the  honor  to  descend 
from  those  who  were  the  nursing  fathers  of  this  colony 
when  I  may  say  it  was  yet  at  the  breast)  their  affections 
for  this  province  with  their  blood  descending  is  equally 
infused  in  me,  and  that  I  want  nothing  so  much  as  to 
aliken  myself  yet  more  to  them  [and  to  have]  such  con- 
fidence [from]  you  as  they  from  your  ancestors  enjoyed." 1 
He  promised  to  devote  every  faculty  of  his  mind  and  body 
to  the  service  of  the  province.  But  after  the  lower  house 
had  threatened  to  withhold  a  part  of  his  financial  support, 
he  spoke  of  himself  as  being  made  a  remarkable  sacrifice 
at  a  time  when  "  slights  and  disregards  to  his  Lordship 
and  his  family  "  had  appeared  "  in  the  full  gloom  of  dark 
envy  and  unreasonable  malevolence."2  After  he  had 
become  broken  down  in  health  he  died  on  his  way  to 
England. 

When  Governor  Ogle  arrived,  he  must  have  found  affairs 
in  an  extremely  critical  condition.  Soon  after  his  arrival 
he  wrote  that  the  country  was*  as  hot  as  possible  about  the 
English  statutes  and  the  judge's  oath;  that  officers  were 
held  in  such  contempt  that  they  did  not  receive  one-half 
their  fees ;  that  his  predecessor  had  expressed  a  good  deal 
of  concern  at  the  want  of  courage  which  the  council  had 
shown  upon  several  occasions ;  and  that  the  account  given 
of  the  Assembly  was  enough  to  frighten  a  man  out  of  his 
wits.  He  thought  that  it  would  puzzle  the  best  capacity 
in  the  world  to  do  one-half  of  what  was  needed  for  the 
lord  proprietor's  service.  Yet  he  was  sure  that  nobody  in 
the  world  could  set  about  that  service  with  more  zeal  and 
more  true  concern  for  the  lord  proprietor  than  he  should 
do.3 

And  it  cannot  be  denied  that  Ogle  did  possess  many  of 

1  L.  H.  J.,  October  8,  1728.  2  U.  H.  J.,  August  1,  1729. 

8  Calvert  Papers,  No.  2,  p.  81  et  seq. 


THE   EXECUTIVE  167 

the  essential  qualities  of  a  successful  governor.  He  felt 
the  need  of  filling  the  more  important  offices  with  the  most 
able  men,  and  of  properly  rewarding  them  for  their  ser- 
vices. It  was,  accordingly,  in  line  with  his  policy  that 
Daniel  Dulany  was  won  over  from  the  strongest  leader  of 
the  opposition  to  the  strongest  supporter  of  the  lord  pro- 
prietor and  his  government ;  and  so  long  as  there  was 
reason  to  hope  for  harmony,  Ogle's  speeches  to  the  Assem- 
bly were  always  pacific  in  spirit.  But  his  zeal  seems  to 
have  cooled,  and  he  could  not  silence  the  opposition. 

The  controversy  over  English  statutes  was  soon  settled, 
and  by  giving  an  office  to  each  of  four  of  the  ablest  mem- 
bers of  the  lower  house  their  support  was  secured.  But 
the  act  of  assembly,  by  which  the  government  had  been 
supported  for  sixteen  years,  was  suffered  to  expire,  and 
the  house  expelled  those  four  who  had  been  appointed  to 
office.  Then  the  opposition  found  new  leaders  who  be- 
came so  loud  and  so  exorbitant  in  their  demands  for  par- 
liamentary privileges,  and  so  unmanageable  in  their  views 
with  respect  to  the  support  of  government,  officers'  fees, 
ordinary  licenses,  surplus  lands,  and  alienation  fines  on 
lands  devised,  that  the  lord  proprietor,  in  order  to  restore 
quiet,  resorted  to  a  proposition  for  the  payment  of  his 
quit-rents  and  to  a  change  of  governors.  But  after  Bladen 
had  shown  himself  unqualified  to  govern,  Ogle  was  reap- 
pointed. From  that  time  he  was  popular.  The  act  of 
assembly  for  the  inspection  of  tobacco  and  the  limitation 
of  officers'  fees,  which  was  passed  only  a  few  months  after 
his  restoration  to  office,  increased  the  general  good  feel- 
ing ;  and  just  after  his  death  in  May,  1752,  the  editor  of 
the  Maryland  Gazette  pronounced  the  following  eulogium 
upon  him :  "  His  great  constancy  and  firmness  in  a  pain- 
ful illness,  and  resignation  to  the  divine  Will,  were  suita- 
ble to  a  life  exercised  in  every  laudable  pursuit.    His  long 


168  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

residence  among  us  made  him  thoroughly  acquainted  with 
our  constitution  and  interests,  and  his  benevolent  dispo- 
sition induced  him  invariably  to  exert  all  the  influence  his 
station,  as  Governor,  gave  him,  and  every  means  which  his 
good  sense  could  suggest,  to  promote  the  public  good.  He 
was  a  pattern  of  sobriety  and  regularity  ;  a  sincere  lover 
of  truth  and  justice  ;  and  a  most  religious  observer  of  his 
word.  His  example  introduced  and  established  a  habit 
of  sobriety  and  civility  among  us.  That  he  was  a  man  of 
fine  parts  and  understanding,  and  that  his  administration 
was  just,  mild,  and  equitable,  his  enemies  (if  such  a  man 
could  have  any)  dare  not  deny.  In  private  life  he  was 
an  amiable  companion,  in  his  conversation  affable,  cheerful, 
and  instructive,  but  never  assuming  ;  and  in  his  friend- 
ship, warm  and  sincere." 

Thomas  Bladen  was  a  brother-in-law  of  the  lord  pro- 
prietor, and  was  the  only  governor  who  was  born  within 
the  province.  He  had  small  capacity  for  governing.  His 
request  for  £2000  in  currency  to  complete  the  governor's 
house  after  he  had  expended  what  had  been  appropriated  for 
that  purpose,  and  his  taking  advantage  of  an  old  law  which 
authorized  him  and  the  council  to  levy  one  pound  of  tobacco 
per  poll,  looked  too  much  like  encroaching  on  the  people's 
taxing  power.  The  result  was  that  he  soon  became  unable 
to  manage  the  opposition.1 

During  Governor  Sharpe's  administration  was  waged  the 
last  intercolonial  war  ;  and  because  of  lack  of  harmony 
between  the  lord  proprietor  and  the  people  —  especially 
because  the  lower  house  stubbornly  insisted  on  taxing 
offices  and  the  lord  proprietor's  estates,  and  on  denying 
the  proprietor's  right  to  ordinary  licenses  —  Maryland 
failed  to  give  much  assistance  in  carrying  on  that  war. 
Then,  too,  the  war  was  followed  by  the  passage  of  the 

1  L.  H.  J„  June  25  and  July  1,  1746. 


THE    EXECUTIVE  169 

Stamp  Act.  It  was,  therefore,  a  most  trying  time  for  the 
governor.  It  was  his  duty  to  be  impartial  toward  the  crown, 
the  lord  proprietor,  and  the  people,  and,  also,  at  times,  to 
protect  the  province  from  the  common  enemy.  But  Sharpe 
showed  himself  equal  to  the  occasion.  He  was  a  member 
of  an  able  English  family.  Through  the  assistance  of  one 
of  his  brothers,  he  received  an  important  military  appoint- 
ment soon  after  the  war  broke  out,  and  was  also  chosen  a 
surveyor  general  of  his  Majesty's  customs.  He  kept  the 
lord  proprietor  well  informed  as  to  his  interests,  and  left 
him  so  little  chance  to  complain  that  when  Eden  was 
appointed  his  successor,  no  other  reason  could  be  assigned 
for  so  doing  than  the  desire  to  give  a  lucrative  appoint- 
ment to  a  brother-in-law. 

Although  the  false  patriots  strove  to  throw  ~  Sharpe's 
conduct  into  an  invidious  light  before  the  people,1  the 
predominating  respect  and  esteem  in  which  he  was  held 
by  the  people  is  best  seen  in  addresses  of  the  lower  house, 
the  clergy,  and  the  county  courts,  just  before  his  retirement. 
It  was  at  that  time  that  the  lower  house  said  to  the  lord 
proprietor,  "  Though  a  retrospection  upon  the  proceedings 
of  this  house  will  not  permit  us  to  say  that  Mr.  Sharpe 
always  paid  a  due  regard  to  the  interest  of  the  province, 
yet  we  must  acknowledge  it  is  our  opinion  that  his  own  in- 
clination led  him  very  much  toward  that  desirable  object."2 

In  an  address  signed  by  thirty-five  of  the  clergy  is  the 
following,  "We  beg  leave  to  take  this  opportunity  of 
gratefully  acknowledging  those  amiable  virtues,  both  in 
your  public  and  private  character,  which  have  justly  pro- 
cured you  the  esteem  and  affection  of  all  ranks,  and  must 
forever  endear  the  name  of  Governor  Sharpe  to  the  in- 
habitants of  Maryland." 

1  Portfolio  4,  No.  53,  Stephen  Bordley  to  Governor  Sharpe. 

2  L.  H.  J.,  December  20,  1769. 


170         MARYLAND   AS   A    PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

In  the  address  from  the  justices  of  Kent  County  is  the 
following:  "During  your  Excellency's  residence  here 
the  King's  prerogative,  his  ■  Lordship's  rights,  and  the 
liberty  of  the  people  have  been  equally  your  care.  .  .  . 
The  open,  polite,  and  free  benignity  of  disposition  so 
natural  to  your  Excellency  has  rendered  all  address  to 
you  easy.  ...  At  several  different  periods  when  it  re- 
quired much  skill  and  judgment  to  direct  the  political 
helm,  affairs  were  so  wisely  and  prudently  conducted  by 
your  Excellency  that  the  people  of  this  province  found 
themselves  under  fewer  embarrassments  than  those  of 
other  places." 

The  following  came  from  the  justices  of  Frederick 
County,  "  The  unremitting  assiduity  of  your  Excellency 
in  discharging  the  duties  of  your  station,  and  the  constant 
attention  you  have  manifested  in  promoting  the  welfare 
of  the  people,  demand  our  warmest  acknowledgments." 

Finally,  the  justices  of  St.  Mary's  County  said,  "  Per- 
mit us  to  express  the  great  concern  we  are  under  at  the 
apprehension  of  being  shortly  deprived  of  a  Ruler  who 
has  proved  himself  a  strict  observer  of  every  relative 
duty,  and  a  steady  friend  to  constitutional  liberty."1 

His  successor,  Robert  Eden,  was,  however,  no  enemy  to 
constitutional  liberty,  but,  like  Sharpe,  was  a  popular 
governor.  He  was  doubtless  a  man  of  less  ability,  resolu- 
tion, and  diligence  in  state  affairs ;  but  he  was  much  less 
interfered  with  by  the  lord  proprietor.  He  was  courteous, 
easily  accessible,  fluent  in  speech,  and  possessed  of  a  good 
amount  of  political  tact.  Moreover,  in  social  circles,  he 
was  a  favorite.  When  the  great  hostility  arose  over 
officers'  fees,  it  was  directed  against  the  members  of  the 
upper  house  rather  than  against  the  governor  ;  and 
when  the  great  struggle  came  with  the  mother  country, 

1  Maryland  Gazette  and  Gilmore  Papers. 


THE   EXECUTIVE 


it  was  with  much  regret  that  the  people  of  Maryland  saw 
Eden  leave  the  province.1 

With  such  men  as  Sharpe  and  Eden  for  governors  at  a 
time  when  the  degenerate  Frederick  and  his  successor,  a 
bastard  son,  were  losing  proprietary  control,  the  transition 
from  the  old  to  the  new  system  of  government  was  made 
with  less  violence. 

In  contrast  with  those  colonies  in  which  the  governor's 
salary  was  dependent  on  annual  appropriations,  a  good 
financial  support  for  the  governor  of  Maryland  was 
secured  in  the  year  1704  by  a  perpetual  act  of  assembly. 
During  the  first  thirty-nine  years  of  the  feudal  period, 
however,  the  form  in  which  the  needs  of  the  government 
were  supplied  was  subject  to  frequent  change.  It  is 
probable  that  during  those  years  the  governors  received 
their  support,  to  a  considerable  extent,  from  the  sale  of 
licenses  to  trade  with  the  Indians.  In  the  year  1642  the 
Assembly  imposed  an  export  duty  of  five  per  cent  on 
tobacco  for  the  support  of  government.  Governor  Greene 
was  charged  with  promising  to  join  with  the  people 
against  the  lord  proprietor  on  the  question  of  the  validity 
of  certain  laws,  if  the  Assembly  would  give  him,  for  one 
year's  support,  twelve  thousand  pounds  of  tobacco,  thirty 
barrels  of  corn,  and  a  house  to  live  in.2  In  the  year  1650 
the  Assembly  gave  to  Governor  Stone  one-half  bushel  of 
corn  per  poll.  In  the  year  1658  Stone  received  from  the 
lord  proprietor  a  grant  of  a  manor  of  five  thousand  acres, 
a  part  of  which  was  a  reward  for  "  good  and  faithful 
service."  Josias  Fendall  and  Philip  Calvert  also  received 
land  as  a  reward  for  service.  From  1662  to  1669  the 
Assembly   gave    Governor    Charles    Calvert   twenty-five 

1  Steiner,  "  Life  and  Administration  of  Sir  Robert  Eden." 

2  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1637-38  to  1664, 
p.  321. 


172    MARYLAND  AS  A  PROPRIETARY  PROVINCE 

pounds  of  tobacco  per  poll.     But  in  1669  he  was  given, 
instead,  an  export  duty  on  tobacco  of  sixpence  per  poll. 

In  1671  an  act  of  assembly  gave  the  lord  proprietor,  for 
life,  a  duty  of  two  shillings  per  hogshead,  one-half  of  which 
the  lord  proprietor  was  to  have  in  consideration  of  his  re- 
ceiving his  quit-rents  and  alienation  fines  in  tobacco  at  two- 
pence per  pound,  and  the  other  half  was  intended  by  the 
Assembly  to  provide  a  support  for  the  governor  and  coun- 
cil, and  a  necessary  supply  of  arms  and  ammunition.  An 
act  of  1676  continued  the  same  duty  to  the  new  lord  pro- 
prietor. But  after  the  royal  government  had  been  estab- 
lished, the  Assembly,  in  1692,  gave  the  whole  shilling  of 
that  two-shilling  duty  to  the  governor.  In  1701,  how- 
ever, the  crown  directed  that  one-fourth  of  the  shilling 
should  go  toward  providing  the  province  with  arms  and 
ammunition.1  After  1704  the  act  imposing  the  duty  for 
the  support  of  government,  and  which  at  that  time  was 
passed  for  an  unlimited  period,  was  not  repealed.  Yet 
from  1717  to  1733  there  was  substituted  in  its  place  the 
act  which  imposed  a  duty  of  three  shillings  and  three- 
pence per  hogshead,  two  shillings  of  which  were  given 
as  an  equivalent  for  quit-rents  and  alienation  fines,  and 
fifteen  pence  for  the  support  of  the  government.  The 
former  duty  of  twelve  pence  was  at  this  time  increased  to 
a  fifteen-pence  duty  because  of  the  increase  which  had 
recently  been  made  in  the  size  of  the  hogsheads,  and  all 
of  it  was  given  to  the  governor.  Finally,  from  the  expi- 
ration of  the  law  of  1717,  —  which  occurred  in  1733, — 
until  the  overthrow  of  the  proprietary  government,  the 
governor  received  for  his  salary  the  duty  of  twelve  pence, 
which  was  collected  by  the  law  of  1704.  But  it  was 
collected  in  the  face  of  standing  resolutions  of  the  lower 
house  that  a  law  passed  during  the  royal  government  was 

i  U.  H.  J.,  May  12,  1701. 


THE   EXECUTIVE  173 

not  in  force  after  the  restoration  of  the  proprietary  gov- 
ernment, and  that  if  it  were  in  force,  one-fourth  of  that 
duty  should  go  toward  purchasing  arms  and  ammunition 
for  the  province.  By  1756  the  duty  had  come  to  amount 
to  about  £1400  currency  per  annum.1 

To  Governor  Hart  the  Assembly  gave  an  additional 
duty  of  three  pence  per  hogshead  as  a  special  encourage- 
ment. But  in  the  interest  of  education,  the  lord  proprie- 
tor, in  1720,  suggested  that  one-half  of  that  duty  be  given 
for  the  support  of  schools.  After  being  thus  reduced,  the 
Assembly  gave  it  for  a  term  of  only  three  years  instead 
of  during  a  governor's  administration.  In  1732  the  term 
was  reduced  to  one  year,  and  after  that  it  was  seldom 
given. 

For  several  years  before  the  Revolution  of  1689,  and 
again  from  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the 
lower  house  was  occasionally  urged  to  provide  means  for 
building  a  governor's  house.  It  was  not  until  the  year 
1732,  however,  that  the  first  appropriation  was  made  for 
that  purpose.  Even  then  no  action  was  taken  until  ten 
years  later,  when  the  former  appropriation  of  £3000  cur- 
rency was  increased  to  £4000  currency.  But  even  with 
this  provision  the  governor's  house  was  not  completed 
during  the  proprietary  period.  For,  after  Governor  Bladen 
had  expended  more  than  the  £4000,  the  house  was  not  yet 
enclosed,  and  he  estimated  that  another  appropriation  of 
£2000  currency  would  be  required  to  complete  the  build- 
ing. But  as  the  lower  house  could  not  be  prevailed  upon 
to  grant  even  enough  to  have  it  enclosed,  it  was  left  in 
a  state  of  decay  until  after  the  overthrow  of  the  proprie- 
tary government.2 

1  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  I,  p.  433. 

2  L.  H.  J.,  May  16  to  June  1,  1744  ;  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  I, 
pp.  12,  56. 


174  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

Nevertheless,  although  the  attempt  to  build  a  governor's 
house  failed,  the  Assembly  made  allowance  to  him  for 
paying  rent;  and  that  allowance  was  increased  from  £45 
currency  in  the  year  1720  to  £80  currency  in  the  year 
1756.  But  to  exceed  the  latter  amount,  the  lower  house 
was  less  inclined  than  to  refuse  any  allowance  what- 
ever.1 

As  chancellor,  the  governor  must  have  received  a  con- 
siderable sum  in  fees.  In  1754  Governor  Sharpe  received 
£226  currency  for  his  service  as  his  Majesty's  surveyor 
general  of  the  customs.2  The  lord  proprietor,  Frederick, 
considered  the  governor's  income  sufficiently  large  to 
request  him  to  pay  annually  £200  toward  the  salary  of 
Secretary  Calvert.3 

In  all  matters  pertaining  to  the  government,  the  chief 
support  of  the  governor  was  the  council  of  state.  It 
appears  that  the  relation  of  governor  and  council  was 
designed  to  be  analogous  to  that  between  the  English 
king  and  his  privy  council.  As  already  stated,  it  was 
the  usual  custom  for  the  lord  proprietor  to  appoint  mem- 
bers of  the  council  upon  the  recommendation  of  the  gov- 
ernor. The  governor  was  expected  to  advise  with  the 
council  upon  all  important  occasions,  and  seldom,  if  ever, 
to  act  contrary  to  its  advice. 

The  members  of  the  council  were  authorized  to  meet 
with  the  governor  at  such  time  and  place  as  he  should 
direct,  and  then  and  there  deliberate  and  give  advice  on 
all  matters  brought  before  them.  They  were  bound  by 
oath  to  defend  and  maintain,  at  all  times  to  the  utmost 
of  their  power,  the  lord  proprietor  and  his  rights;  to  give 
good  and  faithful  counsel  to  both   lord  proprietor  and 

1  L.  H.  J.,  August  1,  1721,  and  May  1, 1756  ;  Sharpe's  Correspondence, 
Vol.  Ill,  p.  153. 

2  Portfolio  3,  No.  30.  3  Calvert  Papers,  No.  2,  p.  120. 


THE   EXECUTIVE  175 

governor;  never  to  accept  any  office,  pertaining  to  the 
government  of  the  province  that  was  derived  from  any 
other  source  than  the  lord  proprietor ;  to  endeavor  to  pro- 
mote the  peace  and  welfare  of  the  people  ;  to  assist  in  the 
administration  of  justice  ;  and,  finally,  to  keep  secret  all 
the  affairs  of  state.1 

The  size  of  the  council  was  gradually  increased  from 
three  in  the   year  1636  to  nine  in  the   year    1681  ;  and 
after  the  establishment  of  the  royal  government,  although     / 
the  full  council  had  twelve  members,  the  usual  number 
was  nine  or  ten. 

A  councillor  was  seldom  removed  or  even  suspended,    \ 
and  vacancies  were,   therefore,  seldom  caused  except  by 
death  or  by  resignation.     Occasionally,  a  member  served 
over  twenty  years.     But  the  membership  was  usually  very 
largely  changed  in  the  course  of  every  ten  years. 

During  the  feudal  period  the  amount  of  business  trans- 
acted in  the  council  was  large.  There  was  seldom  a 
space  as  long  as  two  months  in  which  that  board  did  not 
meet,  and,  when  met,  it  often  continued  in  session  several 
days.  The  variety  of  its  transactions  was  also  large. 
Thus,  in  those  days,  at  the  council  board,  offices  and 
courts  were  created,  officers  were  commissioned  and  in- 
structed, the  oaths  of  officers  were  administered  and  fees 
were  fixed  and  regulated,  taxes  were  levied,  petitions  were 
heard,  pardons  were  granted,  advice  was  given  with  re- 
spect to  calling,  proroguing,  and  dissolving  the  Assembly, 
ordinances  were  issued  with  respect  to  the  proprietor's 
territorial  rights,  the  election  of  delegates,  and  expedi- 
tions against  the  Indians,  and  ordinances  were  likewise 
issued  for  the  erection  of  local  divisions,  —  such  as  hun- 
dreds and  counties,  —  for  the  naturalization  of  foreigners, 
and  forbidding  the  exportation  of  grain. 

i  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1636  to  1667,  pp.  211-214. 


176  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

Bat  after  the  Revolution  of  1689  scarcely  an  office  was 
created,  for  the  most  of  the  time  fees  were  fixed  and 
regulated  by  act  of  assembly,  taxes  were  levied  only  by 
a  committee  of  the  two  houses  of  Assembly,  the  manner 
of  electing  and  summoning  delegates  was  wholly  deter- 
mined by  act  of  assembly,  counties  were  erected  only  by 
act  of  assembly,  hundreds  were  erected  only  by  orders  of 
a  county  court,  foreigners  were  naturalized  only  by  acts 
of  assembly,  and  before  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century  the  lower  house  successfully  opposed  the  forbid- 
ding of  the  exportation  of  grain  by  an  ordinance  of  the 
governor  and  council. 

The  business  of  the  council  was,  therefore,  far  less  in 
the  eighteenth  century  than  it  was  in  the  seventeenth. 
During  an  entire  year  in  the  eighteenth  it  sat  for  but  few 
more  days  than  it  did  in  a  single  month  in  the  seventeenth 
century.  In  the  eighteenth  century  its  business  was 
largely  confined  to  giving  advice  with  respect  to  calling, 
proroguing,  and  dissolving  the  Assembly,  to  Indian  ques- 
tions, to  the  boundary  dispute  with  the  Penns,  to  the 
hearing  of  a  few  petitions,  to  the  issuing  of  death  war- 
rants, and  to  the  granting  of  pardons.  The  marked 
decrease  in  the  business  of  the  council  and  the  corre- 
sponding increase  in  that  of  the  General  Assembly  is  a 
striking  reflection  of  the  change  from  monarchical  toward 
popular  government. 

Just  as  the  lord  proprietor  was  the  fountain  head  of 
all  authority,  and  just  as  the  governor  was  the  representa- 
tive of  the  lord  proprietor,  so,  again,  in  the  council,  office 
and  power  were  highly  centralized.  When  in  the  year 
1649  or  the  year  1650  the  General  Assembly  became 
divided  into  an  upper  and  a  lower  house,  the  governor 
and  council  —  and  after  the  year  1675  the  council  alone 
—  constituted  the  upper  house.     The  governor  and  mem- 


THE   EXECUTIVE  177 

bers  of  the  council  were  the  justices,  of  the  provincial 
court  until  near  the  time  of  the  establishment  of  the  royal 
government.1  The  governor  then  ceased  to  be  a  justice 
of  that  court,  but  a  varying  number  of  the  council  were 
continued  in  that  capacity.  Moreover,  when,  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  royal  government,  the  court  of  appeals  was 
instituted,  the  governor  and  the  members  of  the  council 
were  its  justices.  The  members  of.  the  council  were 
always  justices  of  the  peace.  During  the  early,  or  feudal 
period,  the  secretary,  the  surveyor  general,  the  members  of 
the  land  council,  —  of  whom  the  receiver  general  was  one, 
—  and  some  military  officers  were  members  of  the  council. 
Almost  always,  after  the  restoration  of  the  proprietary 
government  in  1715,  the  secretary,  the  commissary  gen- 
eral, the  attorney  general,  the  agent,  the  judge  or  judges 
of  the  land  office,  one  or  both  of  the  treasurers,  the  com- 
missioners of  the  currency  office,  and  the  five  naval  offi- 
cers were  members  of  the  council.2  If  the  councillor  had 
more  offices  than  he  could  attend  to,  he  appointed  deputies* 
After  the  year  1676  the  secretary  always  appointed  the 
county  clerks ;  and  after  the  year  1717  the  judge  or  judges, 
of  the  land  office  appointed  the  register  of  that  office. 

During  the  feudal  period  the  members  of  the  council 
were  usually  large  landholders.  Thus,  Thomas  Corn- 
wallis,  the  stalwart  military  commander,  had,  at  one  time, 
not  much  less  than  twenty  thousand  acres.  Thomas 
Gerrard,  William  Stone,  Philip  Calvert,  Baker  Brooke, 
Henry  Sewall,  Giles  Brent,  John  Lewger,  James  Neale, 
William  Eltonhead,  and  Nathaniel  Utie  were  all  lords  of 
manors,  and  each  of  the  first  five  of  them  had  five  thousand 
acres  or  more. 

Moreover,  from  the  year  1670  until  the  Revolution  of 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1681  to  1685-86,  pp.  431,  432. 

2  Portfolio  3,  No.  30. 


178  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

1689,  many  of  the  council  were  bound  to  the  lord  pro- 
prietor by  the  ties  of  kinship.  For  example,  of  the  nine 
members  in  the  year  1681,  six  were  related  to  the  lord 
proprietor  as  follows :  Philip  Calvert,  uncle ;  Vincent 
Lowe,  father-in-law  ;  William  Calvert  and  Henry  Darnall, 
cousins  ;  William  Diggs  and  Benjamin  Roger,  step-sons. 

From  the  year  1715  until  after  the  year  1755  the  mem- 
bers of  the  council  had  the  reputation  of  being  men  of  poor 
ability,  and  the  records  show  that  the  transactions  of  that 
board  during  those  years  were  exceedingly  few.  Strength 
was  no  longer  derived,  to  any  considerable  extent,  from 
the  ties  of  kinship  ;  and  while  able  lawyers  had  by  this 
time  become  leaders  in  the  lower  house,  the  lord  proprie- 
tor continued  to  choose  the  members  of  the  council  from 
the  county  gentry  rather  than  from  among  men  of  the 
best  ability.1  Then,  too,  the  pay  for  service  during  that 
interval  was  so  small  as  to  be  a  poor  encouragement. 

In  the  year  1725  the  members  of  the  council  were  Will- 
iam Holland,  Samuel  Young,  John  Hall,  Thomas  Addison, 
Philemon  Lloyd,  Richard  Tilghman,  Matthew  Tilghman 
Ward,  James  Bowles,  and  Benjamin  Tasker.  Three  of 
them  —  Lloyd,  Tilghman,  and  Ward  —  were  near  rela- 
tives ;  and  at  least  seven  of  the  nine  were  among  the  very 
largest  landholders.  These  gentlemen  seemed  to  feel 
much  hurt  when  the  lower  house  cast  u  invidious  reflec- 
tions "  on  them  as  enemies  of  the  liberties  of  the  people. 
When  they,  as  members  of  the  upper  house,  had  made 
their  weakness  to  appear  in  the  controversies  over  officers' 
fees,  English  statutes,  and  pay  for  their  own  services,  they 
allowed  a  bill  to  pass  for  the  reduction  of  officers'  fees 
about  one-half.  Then  they  asked  the  lord  proprietor  to 
reject  that  bill,  advised  him  to  make  some  concessions 
with  respect  to  English  statutes,  and,  in  the  same  com- 

1  Calvert  Papers,  No.  2,  p.  86. 


THE   EXECUTIVE  179 

munication,  expressed  no  little  anxiety  about  their  own 
pay.1 

In  the  year  1729  Governor  Calvert,  with  respect  to 
recommending  for  appointments  to  the  council,  wrote  : 
"  Such  men  as  ought  to  be  chosen  are  not  easily  got,  and 
few  men  care  for  an  empty  honor  attended  with  trouble, 
without  some  recompense.  There  are  not  places  in  the 
government  sufficient  for  all,  and  the  country  refuse  still 
to  pay  them  for  attendance  when  necessary."  2  Two  years 
later  the  same  governor  is  said  to  have  expressed  much 
concern  at  the  want  of  courage  the  council  had  shown  on 
several  occasions.3 

Governor  Ogle  took  pains  to  have  the  most  able  men  in 
the  lower  house  appointed  to  the  most  lucrative  offices, 
and,  after  that,  relied  on  his  own  skill  to  manage  the 
Assembly.  The  consequence  was  that  during  his  admin- 
istration only  one  or  two  men  at  all  conspicuous  for  their 
ability  were  sworn  into  the  council. 

In  the  year  1755  Governor  Sharpe  wrote  to  Secretary 
Calvert  the  following :  "  If  you  knew  how  unaccustomed 
or  how  averse  the  present  members  (except  perhaps  Mr. 
Thomas)  were  to  writing  or  communicating  their  thoughts 
to  the  lower  house  by  message  on  any  occasion,  you  would, 
I  am  persuaded,  think  with  me  that  it  is  highly  requisite 
the  vacancies  in  his  Lordship's  council  should  be  supplied 
with  gentlemen  of  abilities  who  have  been  used  to  argue 
or  write,  and  would  be  capable  of  supporting  his  Lord- 
ship's rights  and  prerogatives  whenever  a  levelling  house 
of  burgesses  should  be  inclined  to  attack  them.  You 
know,  Sir,  that  few  people  will  choose  to  engage  in  a 
dispute  with  those  whose  superior  capacity  they  are  sen- 
sible of."4 

1  U.  H.  J.,  November  5,  1725.  2  Calvert  Papers,  No.  2,  p.  80. 

8  Ibid.,  p.  81  et  seq.      4  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  I,  p.  180  et  seq. 


180  MARYLAND  AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

After  this  and  a  few  similar  representations,  Sharpe 
succeeded  in  introducing  into  the  council  men  of  much 
greater  talent,  such,  for  example,  as  the  Dulanys,  the 
Bordleys,  the  Goldsboroughs,  George  Plater,  and  Daniel 
of  St.  Thomas  Jenifer.  The  greatest  of  these  was  Daniel 
Dulany.  His  father  had  led  the  popular  branch  of  the 
legislature  to  victory  in  its  contest  with  the  lord  proprie- 
tor regarding  the  people's  right  to  the  English  statutes. 
He  had  done  much  to  encourage  the  settlement  of  Fred- 
erick County,  and  he  was  the  most  highly  esteemed  lawyer 
in  the  province.1  The  son,  Daniel,  was  destined  to  out- 
shine his  father's  talents.  He  was  thoroughly  educated 
in  the  mother  country.  He,  like  his  father,  chose  the 
profession  of  the  law.  He  became  a  member  of  the  coun- 
cil in  the  year  1757.  After  the  Stamp  Act  had  been 
published,  he  produced  the  strongest  arguments  against  it 
of  any  man  on  the  American  continent.  This  made  him 
exceedingly  popular,  and  even  the  lord  proprietor  saw  fit 
to  reward  him  still  further  for  his  services.  He  was 
advanced  from  the  office  of  commissary  general  to  the 
office  of  secretary.  His  brother  Walter  was  sworn  into 
the  council,  and  appointed  to  the  office  of  commissary 
general.  His  cousin,  Benjamin  Ogle,  and  his  brother-in- 
law,  William  Fitzhugh,  were  also  appointed  members  of 
the  council.  The  office  of  secretary  and  the  office  of  com- 
missary general  were  the  two  most  lucrative  offices  under 
that  of  the  governor.  The  income  from  them  in  fees  had 
been  greatly  increased  by  the  inspection  act  of  1747,  and 
by  the  large  growth  in  population.  The  Dulanys  were 
related  to  the  most  wealthy  families  in  the  province,  such 
as  the  Bennetts,  the  Dorseys,  the  Lloyds,  the  Tilghmans 
and  the  Chews.  Before  the  close  of  the  proprietary  period 
Daniel  Dulany  had  no  less  than  seventeen  thousand  acres 

1  Dulany  Papers. 


THE   EXECUTIVE  181 

of  land  in  Frederick  County  alone.  Some  other  members 
of  the  council  were  very  wealthy.  Daniel  of  St.  Thomas 
Jenifer,  for  example,  who  was  the  lord  proprietor's  agent 
and  receiver  general,  left  by  his  will,  in  the  year  1790, 
more  than  £5000  currency  besides  a  large  amount  of  land, 
several  slaves,  and  valuable  plate.  Still  another  member, 
Benedict  Calvert,  a  cousin  of  the  lord  proprietor,  held  a 
no  less  lucrative  post  than  that  of  a  judge  of  the  land 
office.  Furthermore,  the  greatest  of  these  officers  were 
constituted  a  board  of  revenue,  and  given  general  super- 
vision of  the  proprietor's  territorial  affairs. 

Ability  of  the  highest  order  had  at  last  found  its  way 
into  the  council.  But  at  the  same  time,  as  will  be  seen 
later,  the  showing  of  so  much  favor  to  one  family,  and  the 
increased  centralization  of  office,  wealth,  and  power  did 
not  fail  to  arouse  suspicion  and  discontent  to  such  an 
extent  as  to  test  the  strength  of  that  ability  beyond 
endurance. 

How  the  council  was  supported  previous  to  the  year 
1671  does  not  appear.  But  from  that  year  until  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  royal  government,  provision  was  made  for 
its  support  by  the  act  which  imposed  the  export  duty  on 
tobacco  of  two  shillings  per  hogshead.  When  its  income 
from  that  source  was  terminated,  provision  was  made  for 
its  support  in  two  separate  acts  of  1692,  —  one,  which 
appropriated  the  fourteen  pence  tonnage  duty  to  the  sup- 
port of  government,  and  another,  which  imposed  a  duty  of 
fourpence  per  gallon  on  imported  liquors.  But  the  crown 
disallowed  the  tonnage  act ;  and  from  1694  until  1723 
there  was  allowed  in  the  public  levy  the  itinerant  charges 
and  150  pounds  of  tobacco  for  each  day's  service  in  coun- 
cil to  every  member  of  that  board.  However,  as  early  as 
1717,  when  the  act  for  the  support  of  government  and  for 
giving  the  equivalent  for  quit-rents  and  alienation  fines 


182  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY  PROVINCE 

was  first  passed,  the  feeling  arose  that,  as  in  1671,  so  now, 
the  council  should  be  supported  out  of  the  duty  appropri- 
ated for  the  maintenance  of  the  government.1  The  con- 
troversy over  English  statutes  sufficiently  strengthened 
that  feeling  to  cause  the  allowance  to  the  council  to  be 
withheld  from  1723  until  1736. 

But  before  1736  a  large  measure  of  quiet  in  the  relations 
between  the  two  houses  had  been  restored,  and  the  gov- 
ernment doubtless  felt  that  it  was  a  little  stronger.  In 
that  year,  therefore,  the  upper  house  declared  that  it 
would  agree  to  no  public  allowance  whatever,  unless  its 
own  allowance  as  a  council  was  included  therein.2  The 
lower  house  yielded  so  far  as  to  agree  to  the  allowance  for 
that  year,  and  for  eleven  years  thereafter  that  allow- 
ance was  made.  But  from  1747  to  1756  no  public  claims 
were  paid  because  the  upper  house  would  not  agree  to  any 
public  allowances  unless  the  lower  house  would  pass  the 
appropriation  demanded  for  the  council.  This  time  it 
was  the  upper  house  that  finally  yielded ;  and  it  is  quite 
clear  that  the  Assembly  made  no  allowance  to  the  council 
after  the  year  1747. 

Nevertheless,  in  1754,  the  average  income  of  each  mem- 
ber of  the  council  from  his  several  offices  was  about  £372 
currency.3  According  to  reports  of  committees  in  the 
lower  house,  the  fees  of  office  in  1774  were  at  least  fifty 
per  cent  greater  in  value  than  they  were  in  1754.  The 
lord  proprietor,  Frederick,  seems  to  have  thought  the  in- 
come to  some  of  the  members  of  the  council  large  enough 
to  ask  four  of  them  to  contribute,  at  first,  £250,  and  later 
£400  each  year  toward  the  salary  of  Secretary  Calvert.4 

1  L.  H.  J.,  July  24  and  28,  1716,  and  May  31,  1717. 

2U.H.  J.,  May  4,  1736. 

s  Portfolio  3,  No.  30. 

4  Calvert  Papers,  No.  2,  p.  120  ;  Calvert  Papers,  No.  648. 


THE  EXECUTIVE  185 

It  is,  therefore,  not  so  strange  that  the  unsuccessful  at- 
tempt, from  1770  to  1773,  to  reduce  those  fees,  caused  a 
tumultuous  uprising  among  the  people. 

It  is  true  that,  from  his  point  of  view,  the  lord  proprie- 
tor was  authorized  by  his  charter  to  create  as  many  offices 
as  he  saw  fit,  to  appoint  any  person  to  as  many  of  those 
offices  as  he  pleased,  and,  in  each  office,  to  allow  whatever 
fees  he  chose  as  a  reward  for  service.  The  old  feudal  idea 
of  privilege  to  the  official  class  also  supported  that  view. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  people  as  English  subjects,  who  were 
proud  of  the  control  they  had  acquired  over  the  official  sysj- 
tern,  and  especially  over  taxation  for  the  support  of  govern! 
ment,  considered  themselves  entitled  by  the  same  charterj 
to  share  in  every  victory  won  by  the  House  of  Commons. 
When,  therefore,  the  position  of  the  House  of  Commons  at 
the  time  when  the  charter  was  granted  is  contrasted  with 
the  position  of  that  same  body  after  the  English  Revolution 
of  1688,  it  will  readily  appear  how  natural  it  was  for  the 
lower  house  of  the  Maryland  legislative  Assembly  to  begin 
to  resist  the  creation  of  new  offices,  to  contend  for  some 
control  over  appointment,  and  to  hold  that,  as  fees  were  of 
the  nature  of  taxes,  it  was  entitled  to  a  large  measure  of 
control  in  fixing  the  amount  of  those  fees.  Contention 
and  resistance  along  this  last  line  were  strengthened  and 
invigorated  as  the  accumulation  of  offices  in  one  person 
resulted  in  encouraging  the  sale  of  such  offices  as  could 
not  be  administered  by  the  first  appointee.  That  conten- 
tion and  resistance  was  strengthened  and  invigorated  as 
the  purchasers  of  such  offices,  in  order  to  make  their  pur- 
chases profitable,  were  induced  to  transgress  the  law  in 
making  all  possible  charges  for  fees.  Lastly,  that  conten- 
tion was  strengthened  and  invigorated,  and  violence  grew 
more  threatening  as,  with  the  rapid  increase  in  population, 
fees  of  office  increased  until  the   large   office-holders  — 


184  MARYLAND   AS   A  PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

members  of  the  council  —  were  enabled,  through  the  in- 
come from  their  estates,  as  well  as  from  their  offices,  to 
live  in  wealth,  luxury,  and  social  splendor  in  the  fashion- 
able, city  of  Annapolis  ;  while,  at  the  same  time,  not  only 
to  the  non-resident,  pleasure-seeking  lord  proprietor  was 
sent  out  of  the  province  each  year  over  £12,000  as  terri- 
torial revenue,  but  also  for  his  secretary's  salary  was  sent 
out  yearly  £600  from  the  earnings  of  the  five  largest 
office-holders. 

The  creation  of  offices  by  the  sole  authority  of  the  lord 
proprietor  or  his  governor  and  council  was  very  largely 
confined  to  the  feudal  period,  and  hence,  also,  to  the  time 
preceding  the  English  Revolution  of  1688.  When  the  gov- 
ernment was  first  organized  it  appears  that  there  were 
appointed  only  the  governor,  two  or  three  persons  styled 
commissioners  to  advise  and  assist  him,  and  a  surveyor. 
In  1636,  when  a  reorganization  of  the  government  was 
undertaken,  one  and  the  same  commission  continued 
Leonard  Calvert  as  governor,  appointed  Jerome  Hawley, 
Thomas  Cornwallis,  and  John  Lewger  to  constitute  the 
council,  and  appointed  John  Lewger  secretary,  register 
of  the  land  office,  and  receiver  general.  It  further  appears 
that  by  a  separate  commission  Jerome  Hawley  was  ap- 
pointed treasurer.  In  1642  the  governor,  the  council, 
and  Lewger  each  received  a  separate  commission.  At 
the  time  of  the  reorganization  of  the  government,  in 
1636,  the  governor  and  council  began  the  erection  of 
such  local  institutions  as  hundreds  and  counties.  Over 
the  hundred,  as  well  as  over  the  county,  the  same  author- 
ity appointed  a  military  commander ;  over  the  hundred, 
a  constable  ;  and  over  the  county,  a  sheriff  and  an  increas- 
ing number  of  justices  of  the  peace.  Those  justices  of  the 
peace  with  a  clerk  soon  came  to  constitute  the  county  court. 
In  1648  the  first  muster  master  general  was  appointed. 


THE   EXECUTIVE  185 

In  1638  John  Lewger,  who  was  already  a  member  of  the 
council,  secretary,  register  of  the  land  office,  and  receiver 
general,  was  made  judge  of  probate  by  an  act  of  assembly. 
It  also  appears  that  the  same  officer  discharged  the  duties 
of  surveyor  general  and  attorney  general.  But  in  1641 
the  office  of  surveyor  general  was  separated  from  the 
secretary's  office  by  the  lord  proprietor's  appointment 
of  a  surveyor  general ;  and  in  1685  the  office  of  exam- 
iner general  was  separated  from  that  of  the  surveyor 
general.  In  1650  or  1660  the  office  of  attorney  gen- 
eral was  separated  from  the  secretary's  office  by  the 
appointment  of  an  attorney  general.  In  1673  the 
office  of  judge  of  probate  was  separated  from  that  of 
the  secretary  and  united  for  a  time  with  that  of  the 
chancellor.  In  1676  the  office  of  receiver  general  was 
separated  from  that  of  the  secretary  by  the  appoint- 
ment of  two  receivers  general.  Finally,  in  1680,  the 
office  of  register  of  the  land  office  was  made  distinct 
from  that  of  the  secretary. 

Upon  the  establishment  of  the  royal  government,  the 
office  of  commissary  general,  or  judge  of  probate,  was 
separated  from  that  of  the  chancellor ;  and  the  office 
of  naval  officer —  or  collector  of  the  customs  duties  which 
were  levied  by  acts  of  assembly  —  and  the  office  of  treas- 
urer were  separated  from  each  other  and  from  that  of  the 
receiver  general.  Before  the  close  of  the  seventeenth 
century  two  treasurers  —  one  for  each  shore  —  had  been 
appointed.  By  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  the 
naval  officers  were  five,  —  one  for  the  lower  Potomac,  one 
for  the  upper  Potomac,  one  for  the  Patuxent,  one  for 
Annapolis,  and  one  for  Oxford  on  the  eastern  shore. 

From  1661  to  the  Revolution  of  1689  the  office  of  chan- 
cellor was  separate  from  that  of  the  governor.  Such  was 
also  the  case  for  a  short  time  under  the  royal  government 


186  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

and,  again,  at  the  close  of  Governor  Hart's  administration. 
But  at  other  times  those  two  offices  were  held  by  the  same 
person. 

As  early  as  1669  it  was  a  grievance  of  the  lower  house 
that  offices  were  erected  without  any  act  of  assembly  for 
so  doing.1  One  of  the  charges  which  the  revolutionists 
of  1689  brought  against  the  government  was  the  creation, 
without  act  of  assembly,  of  such  new  offices  as  those 
of  the  examiner  general,  attorney  general,  and  clerk  of 
the  council.2  With  but  one  exception  after  the  restora- 
tion of  the  proprietary  government  in  1715  no  entirely 
new  office  was  created  without  an  act  of  assembly  for 
that  purpose.  That  exception  was  the  creation  of  the 
office  of  examiner  in  chancery  in  the  year  1734,  and  five 
years  after  its  creation  the  lower  house  unanimously  con- 
curred in  the  report  of  its  committee  on  grievances  that 
the  creation  of  that  office  without  any  law  to  support  the 
same  was  an  encroachment  on  the  rights  of  British  sub- 
jects.3 For  several  years  the  creation  of  that  office  was 
numbered  among  the  grievances,  and  the  lord  proprietor 
finally  decided  that  it  might  be  given  up,  if  necessary,  to 
restore  quiet.4  Although  it  was  retained,  the  charter  right 
according  to  which  it  had  been  erected  was  thereafter  lost. 

The  attempt  to  interfere  with  the  charter  right  of  the 
lord  proprietor  to  appoint  to  office  was  quite  closely  con- 
fined to  the  offices  of  sheriff  and  treasurer.  Besides  being 
a  servant  of  the  courts,  the  sheriff  was  the  collector  of  the 
officers'  fees,  dues  of  the  clergy,  and  whatever  other  taxes 
were  from  time  to  time  levied  directly  on  the  people  by 
act  of  assembly.     He  also  had  much  to  do  at  the  election 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1666  to  1676,  pp.  169, 
176. 

2  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1687-88  to  1693,  p.  219. 

3  L.  H.  J.,  July  23,  1740.  *  Calvert  Papers,  No.  415. 


THE   EXECUTIVE  187 

of  members  to  the  lower  house ;  and  at  one  time  the  farm- 
ers of  the  proprietor's  quit-rents  were  mostly  sheriffs. 
The  treasurers  —  one  for  each  shore  —  were  the  officers  to 
whom  the  sheriffs  paid  what  was  collected  from  the  public 
levies  and  who  accounted  for  the  same  to  the  Assembly. 

As  early  as  1642  an  act  of  assembly  directed  that  the 
governor  should  appoint  sheriffs  from  lists  of  persons 
nominated  for  that  office  by  the  provincial  court  and  by 
each  county  court.  An  act  of  1662  not  only  provided 
for  similar  nominations,  but  forbade  any  person  to  serve 
as  sheriff  longer  than  one  year. 

In  1669  the  Assembly  did  not  so  interfere,  for  the  upper 
house  declared  that  the  right  to  appoint  sheriffs  belonged 
solely  to  the  lord  proprietor,  and  that  the  Assembly  ought 
not  to  meddle  with  it.1 

But  by  1678  the  complaints  against  sheriffs  had  become 
so  bitter  that  an  act  of  assembly  was  passed  that  year  to 
forbid  any  person  from  serving  as  sheriff  longer  than  one 
year,  unless  at  the  end  of  that  year  he  procured  from  one 
of  the  county  courts  a  statement  certifying  to  the  just 
execution  of  his  office.  After  that  time  a  similar  act  was 
usually  in  force.  Yet  under  the  royal  government  there 
arose  the  complaint  that,  although  an  act  of  assembly 
forbade  any  one  to  serve  as  sheriff  longer  than  three  years, 
by  "  clandestine,  secret,  underhand  practices  the  same 
person  continued  as  sheriff  in  all  respects  but  title  for 
many  years  together."  2 

In  1724  the  committee  on  grievances,  after  speaking  of 
the  general  complaint  of  the  people  against  the  sheriffs, 
expressed  the  opinion  that  the  sheriffs  —  by  having  the 
collection  of  all  public  dues  and  officers'  fees  as  well  as 
other  duties  rightly  annexed  to  their  office  —  had  a  much 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1666  to  1676,  p.  197. 
2U.  H.  J.,  July  1,  1714. 


188  MARYLAND   AS    A   PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

greater  influence  on  the  people  than  sheriffs  or  any  other 
officers  in  England.  That  committee,  therefore,  proposed, 
as  the  most  plausible  means  wherewith  to  remedy  the  evil 
and  bring  about  a  "  just  and  tender "  execution  of  the 
office,  that  sheriffs  should  be  elected  by  the  people. 
"And  as  the  grant  of  that  office,"  continued  the  com- 
mittee, "  is  no  advantage  but  a  trouble  to  the  person  grant- 
ing it,  we  hope  it  may  be  thought  the  rather  conducive 
to  the  common  satisfaction  of  prerogative  and  people."1 
But  the  upper  house  was  wise  enough  to  be  of  the  opinion 
that  the  election  of  the  sheriffs  by  the  people  would 
"  prove  a  foundation  for  confusion  and  party  animosities 
succeeded  by  oppression  to  those  who  appeared  not  to  be 
of  the  prevailing  candidate's  party."  Therefore,  that 
house  was  in  no  way  disposed  to  surrender  such  a  branch 
of  the  lord  proprietor's  prerogative. 

Such  was  the  last  attempt  of  the  lower  house  to  inter- 
fere in  the  appointment  of  sheriffs.  Thereafter,  in  order 
to  make  that  officer  feel  his  responsibility  to  the  people, 
the  lower  house  freely  resorted  to  the  practice  of  calling 
before  its  bar  any  sheriff  charged  with  neglect  or  oppres- 
sion in  the  execution  of  his  office;  and  if  found  guilty,  as 
he  usually  was,  that  house  imposed  upon  him  whatever 
penalty  it  pleased. 

In  the  year  1695  the  lower  house  seems  to  have  ap- 
pointed the  two  public  treasurers  without  any  concur- 
rence therein  by  the  governor  or  the  council.  In  the  year 
1713,  when  that  matter  was  in  dispute,  the  lower  house 
contended  that  it  alone  had  the  right  to  appoint,  to  re- 
move, and  to  direct  in  office  those  treasurers,  and  that  the 
upper  house  could  only  concur  or  refuse  to  concur  in 
their  appointment.2  The  upper  house  conceded  all  this 
at  that  time,  and  there  the  question  stood  until  the  year 

i  L.  H.  J.,  October  23,  1724.  2  Ibid.,  November  2,  1713. 


THE   EXECUTIVE  189 

1736.  But  in  that  year,  upon  a  vacancy  occurring,  the 
governor  and  the  council  held  that  the  charter  gave  the 
right  of  appointing  those  officers  to  the  lord  proprietor, 
that  the  right  had  not  been  given  away  by  any  act  of 
assembly,  and,  therefore,  that  the  governor  ought  to  make 
the  appointment  to  fill  the  vacancy.1  He  accordingly  did 
so.  The  lower  house  thereupon  appointed  a  committee  to 
ascertain  what  had  been  the  previous  practice.2  But  the 
treasurers  had  much  less  important  duties  to  perform 
with  respect  to  the  public,  money  than  had  the  sheriffs,  and 
the  matter  was  consequently  regarded  as  of  such  minor 
importance  that  the  house  paid  little  attention  to  the 
report  of  its  committee. 

In  the  year  1692,  the  council  itself  being  involved  in  a 
quarrel  with  the  secretary,  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence,  ques- 
tioned his  right  to  remove  county  clerks  without  sufficient 
cause.3  But  the  secretary  was  sustained  by  the  home 
government.  In  1711,  however,  the  lower  house  re- 
solved that  it  was  illegal  for  the  secretary  to  remove  any 
county  clerk  who  was  legally  and  duly  qualified  for  that 
office.4  Twenty  years  later,  Governor  Ogle,  at  the  begin- 
ning of  his  administration,  wrote  as  follows  to  the  lord 
proprietor,  "  I  am  informed  the  right  your  secretary  has 
of  naming  the  clerks  of  counties  at  his  pleasure  has  not 
only  been  disputed  but  carried  against  him,  and  for  some 
time  acquiesced  in  to  the  great  lessening  of  your  Lord- 
ship's power."5  That  right  of  the  secretary  was,  how- 
ever, recovered  a  little  later  and  retained  to  the  end  of  the 
proprietary  government ;  but  not  without  loud  complaint 

1  C.  R.,  October  23,  1736. 

2  L.  H.  J.,  May  23,  1737  ;  see  also  L.  H.  J.,  June  3,  1748. 
8  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1687-88  to  1693,  pp.  398,  399. 
*L.  H.  J.,  November  2,  1711. 

6  Calvert  Papers,  No.  2,  p.  83. 


190  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

against  the  sale  of  those  clerkships  and  against  the  secre- 
tary's receiving  one-tenth  of  each  clerk's  income.1 

It,  therefore,  appears  that  the  encroachments  macle 
during  the  royal  period  upon  the  lord  proprietor's  right  of 
appointment  to  office  were  discontinued  and  their  effects 
removed  some  time  after  the  proprietary  government  was 
restored.  Yet  a  permanent  act  of  assembly,  passed  in 
1704,  forbade  any  person  to  be  appointed  to  office  who 
had  not  resided  in  the  province  at  least  three  years. 
Later,  when  bills  were  before  the  assembly  for  raising 
supplies  to  carry  on  war,  the  lower  house  insisted  on 
enjoying  the  right  to  name  the  assessors  as  well  as  the 
commissioners  who  were  to  apply  whatever  was  to  be 
appropriated. 

The  outcome  of  the  whole  matter  was,  however,  that 
the  lord  proprietor  retained  such  a  large  control  over 
appointment  to  the  old  offices  that  the  legal  remedy 
against  the  evils  of  centralization  and  sale  in  the  official 
system  was  weak.  In  1666,  when  the  lower  house  was 
quite  strong,  legislation  was  had  for  preventing  the  clerk- 
ship of  a  county  court  from  being  held  by  a  sheriff, 
and  for  making  the  office  of  coroner  distinct  from  that  of 
the  sheriff.  Early  in  the  period  of  royal  government  an 
ineffectual  movement  was  made  to  decentralize  the  official 
system.  In  1709,  and  again  in  1714,  the  committee  on 
grievances  made  its  complaint  against  the  evils  of  one 
person  holding  many  offices.2  In  1740  the  lower  house 
held  that,  since  the  members  of  the  council  participated  in 
legislation,  they  should  be  incapable  of  holding  any  office.3 
But  these  complaints  and  opinions  availed  little. 

The  natural  consequence  of  the  centralization  of  the 
official  system  was  the  sale  of  offices.      During  the  royal 

i  L.  H.  J.,  May  14,  1750. 

2  U.  H.  J.,  November  2,  1709,  and  July  1,  1714.     «  Ibid.,  May  17,  1740. 


THE   EXECUTIVE  191 

period  complaint  was  raised  against  the  sale  of  the  sheriff's 
office.1  Grievous  complaints  were  raised  against  the  sale 
of  the  clerkships  before  1711,  and  from  1739  to  the  close 
of  the  proprietary  period.  Then,  from  1751,  the  office  of 
governor  was  saddled  with  £200  per  annum  ;  the  office 
of  secretary  at  first  with  £50,  but  later  with  £200  ;  the 
office  of  commissary  general  with  £100 ;  and  those  of  the 
two  judges  of  the  land  office  with  £50  each.  From  1720 
to  1774  bills  to  prevent  the  sale  of  offices  on  several  occa- 
sions passed  the  lower  house.  In  1769  that  house,  in  a 
list  of  grievances  which  it  sent  to  the  lord  proprietor, 
declared,  "  The  sale  of  offices,  now  open  and  avowed, 
obliges  the  purchaser,  by  every  way  and  means  in  his 
power,  to  enhance  his  fees ;  this  is  contrary  to  law  and 
leads  directly  to  oppression."2 

But  although  the  lord  proprietor  retained  the  right  of 
appointment,  and  although  the  sale  of  offices  was  not  pro- 
hibited, yet  the  consciousness  that  offices  were  bought  and 
sold  as  an  article  of  merchandise  could  not  have  failed  to 
strengthen  the  efforts  of  the  lower  house  to  control  the 
amount  of  fees.  As  early  as  the  year  1639  some  fees  were 
regulated  by  act  of  assembly.  Previous  to  the  Revolution 
of  1689,  however,  fees  were  for  the  most  part  fixed  and 
regulated  by  the  lord  proprietor,  or  by  the  governor  and 
council.  They  were  fixed  and  regulated  by  the  same 
authority  from  the  year  1733  to  the  year  1747,  and  after 
the  year  1770.  But  at  other  times  —  except  from  Decem- 
ber, 1725,  until  1733,  when  they  were  subject  to  no  regula- 
tion —  they  were  fixed  and  regulated  by  act  of  assembly. 

In  1704  and  in  1714  the  lower  house  made  unsuccessful 
attempts  to  reduce  the  amount  of  fees.  In  1719  that 
house  succeeded  in  having  them  reduced  about  one-fourth. 
In  1724  and  1725  an  unsuccessful  attempt  was  made  to 

i  L.  H.  J.,  November  2,  1709.  2  Ibid.,  December  20,  1769. 


192  MARYLAND   AS    A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

reduce  them  one-half.  In  1747,  when  the  inspection  act 
was  passed,  the  nominal  reduction  of  them  was  one-fifth. 
Finally,  in  1770,  the  unsuccessful  attempt  of  the  lower 
house  to  make  another  reduction  caused  the  governor 
to  issue  a  proclamation  for  their  regulation  as  fixed 
in  the  act  of  assembly,  which  had  just  been  suffered  to 
expire  ;  and  that  proclamation  was  the  occasion  of  tumult- 
uous uprising  in  several  of  the  counties.  For  example, 
the  G-azette  gave  the  following  account  of  the  treatment 
the  proclamation  received  in  Frederick  County  at  the 
close  of  an  election  of  delegates  to  the  lower  house  :  "  The 
proclamation  was  read  and  unanimously  declared  to  be 
illegal,  unconstitutional,  and  oppressive  ;  and  sentenced 
to  be  carried  to  the  gallows,  and  hanged  thereon,  and 
afterwards  to  be  buried  face  downwards,  that  by  every 
ineffectual  struggle  it  might  descend  still  deeper  in  ob- 
scurity. 

"  The  proclamation  was  then  put  in  a  coffin  provided  for 
the  purpose,  and  carried  to  the  place  of  execution,  at- 
tended by  a  concourse  of  at  least  one  thousand  people, 
who  moved  in  slow  and  regular  order,  attended  with 
drums,  fifes,  and  bagpipes,  playing  slow  music  suitable 
to  the  occasion.  The  sentence  was  executed  to  the  uni- 
versal satisfaction  and  joy  of  the  spectators,  under  a 
general  discharge  of  small  arms."1 

That  time  of  general  uprising  also  provoked  such  severe 
criticism  upon  the  whole  official  system  as  the  following  : 
"  When  the  members  of  the  upper  house  hold  their  seats 
for  life,  and  not  for  pleasure,  and  hold  no  lucrative  offices 
under  the  government  ;  when  the  same  gentlemen  are 
not  members  of  the  upper  house,  counsellors,  and  judges 
in  the  provincial  court  and  court  of  appeals  ;  when  the 
judges  of  our  supreme  court  hold  their  commissions  dur- 

1  Maryland  Gazette,  May  27,  1773. 


THE   EXECUTIVE  193 

ing  good  behavior,  and  are  declared  incapable  of  holding 
any  place  from  government  but  their  judicial  stations,  the 
income  of  which  to  be  liberal  ;  when  the  office  of  chancel- 
lor is  separated  from  the  office  of  governor ;  when  a 
law  can  be  obtained  to  prevent  the  sale  of  offices  ;  when 
the  interests  of  the  governors  and  the  governed  are  in- 
separable ;  when  the  good  of  the  people  is  the  object  of 
government ;  when  the  law  of  the  land  is  the  rule  of  con- 
duct, and  not  illegal  proclamations — then  will  government 
be  respected  and  supported ;  then  will  the  governor  be 
considered  to  be  the  friend  of  the  people  over  whom  he 
presides ;  then  will  the  gentlemen  of  the  council  be  thought 
to  act  and  advise  according  to  their  opinion  with  honor 
and  integrity  ;  then  will  the  upper  house  be  deemed  inde- 
pendent of  government,  and  not  perverted  by  the  influence 
of  interest  and  bias  of  office ;  then  will  it  no  longer  be 
deemed  infamous  to  hold  an  office  of  profit  under  govern- 
ment."1 

1  Maryland  Gazette,  October  28,  1773. 


CHAPTER   II 

THE   LEGISLATURE 

The  Assembly  of  the  Palatinate  of  Durham  was  com- 
posed of  the  ordinary  freeholders  and  the  bishop's  council. 
The  members  of  that  council  were  the  members  of  the 
bishop's  household,  the  officers  of  the  Palatinate,  and 
certain  other  persons.  The  council  and  the  other  free- 
holders were  accustomed  to  sit  as  one  body  in  the  capac- 
ity of  a  court  of  law  as  well  as  a  legislative  Assembly. 

As  a  legislative  Assembly,  its  greatest  activity  was 
directed  to  the  subject  of  taxation.  No  impost  proposed 
by  the  bishop  could  be  collected  without  the  assent  of  the 
Assembly,  which  also  enjoyed  the  right  of  self-taxation 
on  its  own  initiative  for  its  own  ends.  But  further  than 
this  the  legislative  functions  did  not  extend  ;  and  those 
very  limited  functions  were  kept  all  the  more  rudimen- 
tary because  the  bishop  was  ordinarily  able  to  "  live  of 
his  own."  They  were  kept  confined  to  taxation  because 
acts  of  parliament  regularly  extended  to  the  Palatinate  ; 
and  because  in  case  of  the  need  of  any  special  or  local 
regulation,  action  was  taken  by  the  council  and  not  by 
the  Assembly.1 

Distance  from  the  seat  of  the  home  government  and  an 
environment  so  unlike  that  in  Durham,  or  in  any  other 
part  of  the  mother  country,  favored  a  far  different  devel- 
opment within  the  province  of  Maryland.  In  the  charter 
was  expressed  the  wish  of  the  crown  that  the  lord  pro- 

1  Lapsley,  "  County  Palatine  of  Durham." 
194 


THE   LEGISLATURE  195 

prietor  would  assemble  the  freemen  or  .their  delegates  for 
the  framing  of  laws  as  often  as  need  should  require. 
But  it  was  clearly  implied  that  ordinarily  the  lord  pro- 
prietor might  be  the  judge  with  respect  to  the  existence 
of  such  a  need  ;  and  the  right  to  determine  the  form  or 
manner  of  calling  an  Assembly  was  expressly  granted  to 
the  lord  proprietor. 

The  first  Assembly  was  convened  eleven  months  after 
the  landing  of  the  first  colonists.  But  little  is  known  of 
that  Assembly  except  that  some  acts  passed  by  it  failed  to 
receive  the  lord  proprietor's  assent.  Nearly  two  years 
later,  when  the  second  Assembly  was  called,  the  governor 
issued  personal  writs  of  summons  to  the  members  of  the 
council  and  a  few  others.  Some  of  those  thus  summoned 
in  person,  such  as  commanders  of  hundreds,  were  directed 
to  encourage  the  attendance  of  such  persons  as  they  saw 
fit,  and  to  give  all  other  freemen  of  the  hundred  the  privi- 
lege^ attend  in  person  or  to  choose  delegates.1  The  result 
of  issuing  such  writs  was  not  that  delegates  were  publicly 
elected,  but  that  many  made  private  choice  of  a  proxy. 
So  that  when  the  most  important  question  of  the  ses- 
sion was  put  to  a  vote,  nineteen  persons  cast  sixty-nine 
votes.2  The  consequence  was  that  a  complaint  arose  that 
the  governor  and  the  secretary,  being  proxies  for  so 
many,  controlled  the  Assembly.3 

Less  than  one  year  later,  December,  1638,  writs  of 
election  were  issued,  preparatory  to  calling  the  third 
Assembly,  to  each  of  the  hundreds  and  to  one  manor. 
The  writ  sent  to  the  hundreds  directed  that  two  or  more 
delegates  should  be  chosen,  but  the  writ  to  the  manor  did 
not  state  the  number.  Personal  writs  of  summons  were 
also  issued  to  each  member  of  the  council  and  to  three 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1637-38  to  1664,  p.l. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  11.  8  Calvert  Papers,  No.  1,  p.  160. 


196  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

other  gentlemen.1  When  this  third  Assembly  had  met 
there  were  present  the  governor,  five  persons  who  had 
received  a  personal  summons,  two  delegates  from  each  of 
four  hundreds,  and  one  delegate  from  a  manor. 

Each  of  the  two  acts  passed  by  that  Assembly  supported 
the  manner  in  which  it  had  been  elected  and  called.  But 
from  1641  to  1650  the  disquietude  in  the  province,  result- 
ing from  the  civil  commotion  in  the  mother  country, 
caused  the  governor  again  to  assemble  the  freemen 
in  person,  by  delegates  or  by  proxies  ;  and  that  the 
directing  how  the  Assembly  should  be  constituted  was 
still  claimed  by  the  lord  proprietor  as  his  sole  right, 
appeared  after  a  protest  had  been  made  in  the  year  1647 
against  the  right  of  the  governor  to  continue  as  a  legal 
Assembly  one  which  had  been  regarded  as  a  rebel  As- 
sembly.2 But  in  the  year  1650,  after  the  governor  had 
given  the  freemen  the  opportunity  to  assemble  in  person, 
by  proxy,  or  to  elect  delegates,  each  of  the  hundreds 
elected  from  one  to  three  delegates.  Ever  after  that  the 
representative  method  of  election  was  followed. 

The  establishment  even  by  custom  of  a  system  of  repre- 
sentation—  which  in  no  form  whatever  seems  to  have 
been  known  in  the  Palatinate  of  Durham  —  was  an  im- 
portant step  toward  organizing  the  legislative  power  of 
the  people.  But  so  long  as  the  governor  continued  his 
early  practice  of  summoning  by  personal  writs  an  indefi- 
nite number  of  gentlemen  to  sit  with  the  people's  repre- 
sentatives, it  might  have  been  easy  for  him  to  control 
legislation.  In  1642,  however,  the  delegates  took  their 
first  step  to  remove  any  advantage  the  governor  might 
secure  from  such  a  privilege  by  requesting  that  the  As- 
sembly be  divided  into  two  houses,  of  which  the  people's 

»  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1637-38  to  1664,  pp. 
27,28.  *  Ibid.,  p.  266. 


THE   LEGISLATURE  197 

representatives  should  constitute  one,  and  have  the  right 
to  give  its  negative  to  any  legislative  measure.1  Though 
Governor  Calvert  refused  to  grant  the  request,  Governor 
Stone  seems  to  have  yielded  the  point  in  1649.  At  any 
rate,  in  1650,  the  two  houses  were  established  by  act  of 
assembly  ;  and  ever  after  that  the  bicameral  system  was 
continued,  except  during  the  short  period  of  government 
by  the  Puritan  commissioners.  This  was  another  advance 
in  organization  beyond  that  of  the  Assembly  in  the  Palati- 
nate of  Durham.  Henceforth  the  upper  house  was  to 
stand  for  the  rights  and  interests  of  the  lord  proprietor, 
while  the  lower  house  stood  for  the  rights  and  interests 
of  the  people.  No  law  could  be  made  or  repealed  without 
the  consent  of  both  houses,  of  the  governor  and  the  lord 
proprietor.  The  contest  between  the  elements  of  monar- 
chical government  on  the  one  side,  and  those  of  popular 
government  on  the  other,  was  thereafter,  in  a  large  meas- 
ure, fought  out  by  the  two  houses,  although  both  the 
governor  and  the  lord  proprietor  occasionally  became 
more  or  less  fiercely  engaged  therein. 

Of  the  upper  house  little  need  be  said  in  this  connec- 
tion, since  the  last  chapter  was  so  largely  devoted  to  it  as 
an  executive  body.  Although  in  the  year  1675  the  lord 
proprietor  authorized  the  governor  to  summon  to  the 
upper  house,  besides  the  members  of  the  council,  a  num- 
ber of  lords  of  manors  not  exceeding  seven,2  and  although 
in  the  year  1721  Governor  Charles  Calvert  was  in  doubt 
about  the  right  of  a  person  suspended  from  the  council 
to  retain  his  seat  in  the  upper  house,8  it  is  probable  that 
from  the  time  of  the  division  of  the  Assembly  into  two 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1637-38  to  1664, 
p.  130. 

2  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1671  to  1681,  p,  10. 

3  L.  H.  J.,  February  20,  1721, 


198  MARYLAND    AS    A    PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

houses  none  sat  in  the  upper  house  except  the  governor 
and  council,  and  after  the  year  1675  the  governor  was  not 
considered  a  member  of  that  body.1 

This  house  was  therefore  small  and  required  little 
organizing.  The  president  of  the  council  was  of  course 
the  presiding  officer  after  the  governor  ceased  to  be  a 
member.  The  clerk  of  the  council  was  the  clerk  of  the 
upper  house.  It  had  no  standing  committees  and,  except 
when  some  of  its  members  were  appointed  to  serve  on  a 
joint  committee  of  the  two  houses  or  to  join  in  a  confer- 
ence with  some  of  the  members  of  the  lower  house,  it 
seems  seldom  to  have  done  business  other  than  as  an 
entire  body.  The  important  things  to  be  borne  in  mind 
with  respect  to  it  are  that  it  was  composed  of  the 
flower  of  the  office-holding  class  ;  that  every  member 
was  kept  dependent  on  the  lord  proprietor  by  being 
permitted  to  hold  none  of  his  government  positions 
except  during  his  pleasure ;  and  that  through  its  advice 
given  to  the  governor  that  house  might  exercise  a  strong 
control  over  the  calling,  proroguing,  and  dissolving  of 
the  Assembly. 

In  the  early  years  when  proxies  were  chosen,  all  free- 
men, as  well  as  freeholders,  were  not  only  entitled  to  a 
seat  in  the  Assembly,  but  the  Assembly  voted  to  impose 
a  fine  of  twenty  pounds  of  tobacco  upon  any  who  neg- 
lected to  attend  in  person  or  by  proxy.2  For  several 
years  after  it  had  become  the  custom  to  elect  delegates, 
the  only  qualifications  prescribed  were  that  voters  should 
be  freemen  and  that  delegates  should  be  discreet  free- 
men.3     Such   a   practice    gave    to   some    small   property 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1671  to  1681,  p.  10  ;  also,  U.  H.  J., 
October  25,  1725. 

2  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1637-38  to  1664,  p.  6. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  425. 


THE   LEGISLATURE  199 

holders  greater  political  privileges  than  those  of  the  same 
class  enjoyed  in  the  mother  country. 

But  in  the  year  1666  the  feeling  between  the  upper 
house  and  the  newly  elected  members  of  the  lower  house 
became  bitterly  hostile.  Another  meeting  of  the  Assem- 
bly was  not  called  until  after  the  next  election,  three 
years  later.  That  election  proved  to  be  in  no  way  favor- 
able to  the  lord  proprietor  or  his  government  ;  and  when 
those  delegates  met  in  the  session  of  the  year  1669,  their 
unfriendly  feeling  was  augmented  by  the  lord  proprietor's 
disalloAvance  of  several  acts  of  assembly  that  had  been 
passed  three  years  before.  Moreover,  resistance  was 
urged  by  Charles  Nicholett,  a  clergyman,  whom  some  of 
the  members  had  asked  to  stir  up  the  whole  house  to  its 
duty.  In  a  sermon  to  that  body  he  requested  the  mem- 
bers to  beware  of  the  "sin  of  permission,"  stated  that 
never  before  had  so  much  been  expected  from  a  lower 
house  as  from  the  one  he  was  addressing,  and  strongly 
recommended  that  they  should  follow  the  House  of  Com- 
mons as  their  example.1  Instead  of  granting  the  lord 
proprietor  a  subsidy  for  the  support  of  government  and 
as  a  recompense  for  the  heavy  expense  he  had  incurred  in 
founding  the  colony,  the  delegates  presented  a  list  of 
grievances,  complained  of  heavy  taxation,  and  gave  the 
governor  for  but  one  year  an  export  duty  on  tobacco  of 
only  sixpence  per  hogshead.  As  a  consequence,  that 
Assembly  never  met  again;  and  when  writs  of  election 
were  issued,  in  December,  1670,  suffrage  was  restricted  to 
such  freemen  as  had  a  freehold  of  at  least  fifty  acres, 
or  a  visible  estate  of  £40  sterling.  The  same  quali- 
fications were    also   prescribed   for  delegates.2      At   that 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,   1666  to  1676,  p. 


159. 


2  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1667  to  1687-88,  p.  77  et  seq. 


200  MARYLAND    AS   A   PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

time,  too,  the  city  of  St.  Mary's  was  given  its  first  repre- 
sentation in  the  Assembly,  and  its  delegates  were  chosen 
by  its  mayor,  recorder,  aldermen,  and  common  council, 
all  of  them  creatures  of  the  governor. 

Such  restriction  of  the  suffrage  was  the  occasion  of  one 
of  the  charges  made  against  the  government  at  the  time  of 
the  threatened  rebellion  of  1676. 1  Yet,  although  the  op- 
position of  the  lower  house  had  become  quite  active  again  by 
the  year  1678,  no  complaint  appears  to  have  been  made  by 
that  body  against  the  restriction  of  suffrage.  An  act  of 
assembly  passed  that  year  provided  for  the  continuance  of 
the  restriction,  while  it  also  disqualified  sheriffs  and  inn- 
keepers from  being  elected  delegates.  That  act  was 
disallowed  by  the  lord  proprietor  because  of  another  pro- 
vision which  it  contained.2  But  from  the  beginning  of 
the  royal  government  the  qualifications  provided  by  the 
act  of  1678  became  a  law,  and  thereafter  but  slight 
changes  were  made  in  the  qualifications  of  either  voters 
or  delegates  until  1776.  However,  from  the  beginning  of 
the  royal  government  Catholics  were  disfranchised;  and 
in  the  year  1708,  when  Annapolis  was  incorporated  as  a 
city  in  the  place  of  St.  Mary's,  the  qualifications  of  voters 
for  the  two  city  delegates  were  changed.  The  charter  of  the 
new  city  at  first  conferred  the  suffrage  only  on  the  mayor, 
recorder,  aldermen,  and  common  council,  as  had  been  done 
in  the  case  of  St.  Mary's.  But  immediately  after  those 
magistrates  had  been  sworn  into  office,  they,  with  other  in- 
habitants, petitioned  the  governor  to  extend  the  suffrage  so 
as  to  include  all  freeholders ;  that  is,  all  who  owned  a 
house  and  lot  within  the  city,  all  residents  having  a  visible 
estate  of  the  value  of  £20  sterling,  and  all  persons  who, 
after  having  served  five  years   to  any  trade  within   the 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1671  to  1681,  p.  138. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  378. 


THE   LEGISLATURE  201 

city,  should  become  housekeepers  and  inhabitants.  This 
petition  was  granted.1  Again,  in  the  year  1715,  residence 
within  the  county  was  coupled  with  the  requirement  as 
to  the  possession  of  personal  property ;  while  compulsory 
voting  was  resorted  to  by  the  imposition  of  a  fine  of  one 
hundred  pounds  of  tobacco  upon  any  qualified  elector 
who  failed  to  appear  at  an  election. 

As  already  observed,  the  local  unit  of  representation 
was  at  first  the  hundred.  But  in  1654,  the  year  in  which 
the  proprietary  government  was  temporarily  superseded 
by  the  Puritan  commissioners,  that  unit  of  representation 
was  changed  from  the  hundred  to  the  county.  After  the 
restoration  of  the  proprietary  government  in  1658,  repre- 
sentation by  counties  was  continued,  while  from  1671,  as 
noticed  above,  one  city  also  was  represented. 

The  writs  of  election  issued  during  Governor  Fendall's 
administration  directed  that  four  delegates  should  be 
chosen  in  each  county.  Those  issued  in  the  time  of 
Governor  Philip  Calvert  left  it  to  each  sheriff  to  cause 
the  election  of  as  many  delegates  as  he  saw  fit.  Those 
issued  at  the  beginning  of  the  administration  of  Gov- 
ernor Charles  Calvert  permitted  the  freemen  to  choose  any 
number  from  one  to  four.  But  in  1670  the  writ  which 
restricted  the  suffrage  directed  that  four  delegates  should 
be  elected  in  each  county ; 2  at  the  same  time,  in  calling  the 
first  Assembly  after  an  election  under  the  new  suffrage  reg- 
ulation, the  governor  began  the  practice  of  summoning  only 
a  part  of  those  who  were  elected.  The  saving  of  expense 
was  assigned  as  the  reason  for  not  summoning  all.3  It  is 
not  strange  that  such  a  reason  did  not  satisfy.     In  1676, 

1  Chancery  Records. 

2  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1667  to  1687-88,  p.  77. 

3  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1666  to  1676,  p. 
241. 


202  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

after  only  two  of  the  four  delegates  from  each  county  had 
been  summoned,  the  lord  proprietor  was  presented  with  a 
petition  from  delegates  and  other  citizens,  praying  that 
thereafter  a  fixed  number  should  be  elected,  that  all  who 
were  elected  should  be  summoned,  and  that,  in  case  of  a 
vacancy,  a  writ  should  be  issued  to  fill  the  same  by  a  new 
election.1  As  this  was  the  time  of  Bacon's  Rebellion  in 
Virginia,  and  a  time  also  when  a  similar  uprising  was 
threatening  in  Maryland,  the  lord  proprietor  agreed  to 
comply  with  the  request,  but  declared  that  thereafter  he 
would  exact  of  every  delegate  an  oath  of  fidelity  to 
himself.2 

Accordingly,  at  the  next  session  of  Assembly,  held 
in  the  year  1678,  four  newly  elected  delegates  were  sum- 
moned from  each  county.  At  that  session,  an  act  was 
passed  not  only  requiring  the  election  of  four  delegates 
from  each  county  and  two  from  the  city  of  St.  Mary's, 
but  also  obliging  all  that  were  elected  to  attend  each 
session  without  waiting  for  a  writ  of  summons.  Another 
session  of  Assembly  was  not  held  until  nearly  three  years 
later,  and  the  proclamation  by  which  it  was  called  con- 
tained the  lord  proprietor's  veto  of  the  act  of  1678,  and 
also  a  declaration  that  after  the  next  dissolution  only  two 
delegates  should  be  elected.3  Then,  too,  although  the 
lord  proprietor  must  have  known  that  there  would  be 
twelve  vacancies  among  the  forty-two  seats  in  the  lower 
house,  no  action  was  taken  to  fill  these.  The  failure  to 
do  so  was  a  failure  to  keep  his  promise  made  in  1676,  in 
reply  to  the  petition  of  that  year.  As  a  consequence, 
from  the  time  of  issuing  the  proclamation  to  that  of  the 
meeting  of  the  Assembly,  there  was  much  talk  among  the 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1666  to  1676,  pp. 
507,  508.  *  Ibid.,  p.  508. 

8  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1671  to  1681,  p.  378  et  seq. 


THE   LEGISLATURE  203 

people  that  there  could  be  no  Assembly  without  a  new 
election  to  make  a  full  house.  Three  days  after  the 
opening  of  the  session,  the  delegates  presented  the  lord 
proprietor  with  an  address  in  which  they  stated  that 
they  conceived  their  house  "  greatly  incapacitated  to 
act,"  and  that  they  had  unanimously  resolved  that 
their  speaker  ought  to  issue  out  warrants  for  filling 
the  vacancies  according  to  the  practice  of  the  House  of 
Commons.1  They  prayed  that  the  lord  proprietor  would 
appoint  and  constitute  some  officer  to  whom  the  speaker 
might  direct  such  warrants.  But  both  the  lord  proprie- 
tor and  the  upper  house  feared  lest,  by  having  the  vacan- 
cies filled,  a  precedent  might  be  established  for  making 
four  delegates  from  each  county  necessary  to  constitute  a 
lower  house.  Hence  that  body  was  a  second  time  called 
before  the  upper  house  and  urged  to  proceed  to  business. 
But  for  several  days  it  seems  to  have  proceeded  to  no 
other  business  than  to  frame  a  bill  to  provide  that  two 
delegates  should  be  elected  in  each  county,  and  that  when 
there  was  a  vacancy  the  speaker  should  direct  his  warrant 
to  the  secretary  to  issue  a  writ  for  an  election  to  fill  the 
same.  During  the  contest  over  that  bill,  the  lower  house 
claimed  that  it  was  entitled  to  all  the  privileges  of  the^ 
House  of  Commons,  whereas  the  upper  house  likened  the  '• 
inhabitants  of  Maryland  to  a  conquered  people.2  The 
bill  was  not  passed.  But  no  other  business  was  taken  up 
until  after  the  lord  proprietor  had  instructed  the  secre- 
tary to  issue  writs  for  filling  the  eleven  vacancies,  so  that 
each  county  should  have  its  four  representatives.  It  should, 
however,  be  stated  that,  although  he  ordered  the  writs  to 
be  issued,  he  declared  that  thereafter  only  two  delegates 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1678  to  1683,  pp. 
114,  115. 

2  Ibid.,  pp.  123-127. 


204  MARYLAND    AS   A   PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

should  be  elected  from  each  county  ; 1  and  when  an  elec- 
tion was  held  the  next  year,  his  will  in  that  particular 
was  executed. 

The  lord  proprietor  had  also  been  charged  with  abusing 
his  privilege  of  appointing  sheriffs  to  control  elections. 
The  summoning  of  only  a  select  part  of  the  delegates 
looked  too  much  like  taking  undue  advantage  of  his  char- 
ter right,  while  his  neglect  to  fill  vacancies  was,  to  say  the 
least,  not  according  to  English  usage.  It  was  also  thought 
to  be  clear  that  the  lord  proprietor  could  not  be  left  to 
enjoy  all  his  charter  rights  as  he  saw  fit  without  violating 
those  provisions  in  the  charter  which  guaranteed  to  the 
inhabitants  of  Maryland  the  privileges  of  English  subjects. 
So,  although  the  people  of  each  county  had  complied  with 
the  writ  for  the  election  of  only  two  delegates,  they 
instructed  those  delegates  to  seek  to  have  the  former 
number  restored.  The  lower  house,  accordingly,  asked 
the  lord  proprietor  to  agree  to  an  act  of  assembly  for  pro- 
viding that  thereafter  writs  should  be  issued  for  electing 
two,  three,  or  four  delegates  from  each  county,  at  the 
choice  of  the  freemen.2  They,  however,  asked  in  vain ;  for 
the  concluding  part  of  the  lord  proprietor's  answer  was  as 
follows :  "  I  think  your  late  request  is  of  that  nature  that 
it  will  as  well  be  inconvenient  for  the  free  men  to  accept  as 
it  may  be  dangerous  for  me  to  grant.  What  privileges 
and  powers  I  have  by  my  charter  are  from  the  King,  and 
that  of  calling  assemblies  in  such  manner  and  way  as  I 
shall  think  fit,  being  an  undeniable  one  amongst  the  rest, 
I  cannot  deem  it  honorable  nor  safe  to  lodge  it  in  the 
freemen  as  you  have  desired,  for  it  would  be  as  reasonable 
for  me  to  give  away  my  power  of  calling  and  dissolving  of 
assemblies  as  to  give  that  of  choosing  the  number  of  dele- 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1678  to  1683,  pp. 
133,  134.  2  Ibidmi  p.  407. 


THE   LEGISLATURE  205 

gates.  .  .  .  Therefore,  I  hope  you  will  not  hence  for- 
ward press  anything  of  this  nature  to  me,  being  resolved 
never  to  part  with  powers  my  charter  gives  me,  but 
always  to  exercise  them  for  the  ease  and  welfare  of  the 
freemen  under  my  care,  and  by  so  doing  I  shall  ever  be 
left  able  to  render  a  good  account  of  my  great  charge  here 
to  my  Sovereign  Lord  the  King,  by  whose  grace,  favor, 
and  goodness  I  enjoy  all  I  have.  And  so  I  rest. 
"  Your  very  loving  friend, 

"C.  Baltimore."  1 


In  the  face  of  such  a  reply  the  lower  house  continued  its 
efforts  to  get  the  desired  bill  passed,  and  sought  to  accom- 
plish its  end  by  withholding  some  of  the  lord  proprietor's 
favorite  bills.  But  whenever  affairs  arrived  at  such  a 
status,  the  proprietor  called  the  delegates  before  him  in 
the  upper  house,  and  there  prevailed  upon  them  to  yield.2 
In  this  way  he  for  a  time  retained  that  right,  but  in  so 
doing  he  added  to  the  causes  of  the  Revolution  which  soon 
followed,  and  which  ended  in  depriving  him  of  all  right  to 
govern.  The  first  Assembly  under  the  royal  government 
easily  passed  an  act  prescribing  a  form  of  writ  which 
directed  the  election  of  four  delegates,  and  that  number 
remained  unchanged  until  the  Revolution  of  1776.  From 
the  beginning  of  the  royal  government,  also,  the  speaker 
enjoyed  the  privilege  of  directing  his  warrant  to  the  secre- 
tary to  issue  writs  for  filling  vacancies,  although  it  was 
not  until  1718  that  provision  was  made  for  this  by  legisla- 
tive enactment.  The  right  of  determining  the  number  of 
delegates  —  all  of  whom  had  to  do  service  in  assembly  — 
and  of  control  over  the  filling  of  vacancies,  like  that  of 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1678  to  1683,  p.  416 

2  Ibid.,  p.  491  et  seq. 


206  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

fixing  the  qualifications  of  voters  and  delegates,  when  once 
possessed  by  the  legislative  Assembly,  was  never  lost. 

From  1666  to  1669,  from  1671  to  1674,  and  from  1681 
to  1684  there  was  no  session  of  assembly.  Except  during 
these  intervals,  all  of  which  fall  within  the  administration 
of  the  first  Charles  Calvert,  either  as  governor  or  as  lord 
proprietor,  there  were  very  few  years  of  proprietary  govern- 
ment in  which  there  was  not  at  least  one  session  of  assem- 
bly. In  the  early  years  of  the  province  there  was  frequent 
cause  for  calling  it,  and  after  the  establishment  of  the  royal 
government  annual  assemblies  came  to  be  looked  upon  as 
the  rule.  So  it  happened  that,  from  the  restoration  of  the 
proprietary  government  in  1715  until  1775,  there  were  only 
three  years — 1743, 1764,  and  1767 — in  which  the  Assembly 
did  not  meet.  It  was  because  of  the  great  disquietude,  and 
the  opposition  to  the  government  at  the  time,  that  the  lord 
proprietor  ordered  no  assembly  to  be  called  in  1743.  Al- 
though his  order  was  obeyed,  Secretary  Jennings,  with 
good  reason,  wrote  that  he  doubted  the  expediency  of  break- 
ing through  the  common  rule  at  such  a  juncture.1  The 
small-pox  kept  the  Assembly  from  meeting  in  1764,  while 
the  reason  why  it  did  not  meet  in  1767  does  not  appear. 

Again,  with  the  exception  of  the  years  from  1671  to 
1676  and  from  1676  to  1681,  —  during  the  administration 
of  Charles  Calvert,  —  there  never  was  a  time  under  the 
proprietary  government  in  which  there  was  not  an  election 
of  delegates  within  intervals  of  about  three  years  or  less. 
Prorogations  before  the  Assembly  had  completed  its  busi- 
ness were  rare  —  the  most  important  ones  of  that  nature 
being  in  1739  and  1770.  Finally,  the  anti-government 
party  was  almost  invariably  so  strong  that  the  governor 
seldom  saw  anything  to  be  gained  from  a  dissolution 
before  the  end  of  the  three-year  term. 

1  Gilmore  Papers. 


THE   LEGISLATURE  207 

Therefore,  although  the  lord  proprietor  always  retained, 
in  form,  his  charter  right  to  convene,  prorogue,  or  dissolve 
the  Assembly  when  he  saw  fit,  it  seems  probable  that  he 
was  permitted  to  do  so  only  because  he  followed  very 
closely  the  custom  in  vogue  in  the  mother  country,  and 
seldom  used  those  rights  for  the  sole  purpose  of  defeating 
the  popular  will.  At  any  rate,  the  people  were  by  no 
means  indifferent  with  respect  to  the  use  he  made  of  the 
rights.  In  1642,  as  a  consequence  of  the  movement  that 
was  then  in  progress  in  the  mother  country,  protests  were 
made  against  the  lord  proprietor's  right  to  prorogue  the 
Assembly.1  In  1654,  under  the  government  of  the  Puri- 
tan commissioners,  a  law  was  made  to  require  the  calling 
of  an  assembly  once  every  three  years  or  oftener.  In 
1697,  under  the  royal  government,  Governor  Nicholson 
likened  the  General  Assembly  to  the  English  Parliament, 
and  stated  that  since  a  statute  prohibited  the  continuance 
of  one  Parliament  longer  than  three  years,  he  thought  best 
to  dissolve  the  Maryland  Assembly  when  it  had  continued 
about  that  length  of  time.2  He,  accordingly,  dissolved  it, 
and  thereby  a  precedent  was  established  which  was  ever 
after  followed  until  1776. 

One  of  the  most  effective  ways  which  the  lower  house 
had  of  asserting  its  power,  was  to  call  before  it  any  minor 
officer  against  whom  a  public  charge  was  brought,  and,  if 
found  guilty,  reprimand,  fine,  and  even  imprison  him. 
But  if  he  were  imprisoned,  the  governor  could  cause  him 
to  be  released  by  proroguing  the  Assembly'.  Frequent 
prorogations  for  that  purpose  could  not  have  failed  to 
provoke  a  lively  controversy.  It,  however,  seems  to  have 
happened  but  twice.  The  first  time,  in  1739,  it  was  rather 
quietly  passed  over.     But  after  it  had  been  repeated  in 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1637-38  to  1664,  pp. 
117,  180.  2  L.  H.  J.,  June  11,  1697. 


208  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

1770,  the  lower  house  expressed  its  sentiment  to  the  gov- 
ernor as  follows :  "  When  we  view  as  its  effects,  a  con- 
siderable charge  to  the  province  ;  a  total  stagnation  of 
business  for  several  days  ;  bills  of  importance  before  both 
houses  unfinished,  that  must  be  taken  up  anew  ;  the  jour- 
nals of  accounts  lying  before  the  upper  house ;  the  peti- 
tions of  many  people  defeated,  or  with  expense  and 
difficulty  renewed ;  an  inquiry  into  grievances  of  others 
stopped,  and  parties  laid  under  the  necessity  either  of 
attending  a  heavy  expense  or  going  away  unheard  ;  a 
public  officer  released,  and  public  justice  evaded  ;  we  can- 
not but  complain  of  the  prorogation  as  an  undue  and  ill- 
advised  exertion  of  power ;  that  power  with  which  your 
Excellency,  as  supreme  magistrate,  is  constitutionally  in- 
vested for  the  good  of  the  people."1  The  closing  words 
well  illustrate  how  it  had  come  to  pass  that  the  lord  pro- 
prietor was  to  enjoy  what  was  left  to  him  of  his  original 
charter  right  of  calling  an  assembly  of  freemen  —  in  what- 
ever manner  seemed  best  to  him,  and  as  often  as  need  should 
require  —  only  on  condition  that  he  used  that  right  for  the 
good  of  the  people,  the  people  themselves  being  judges. 

Still  further,  until  the  Revolution  of  1689,  the  lord  pro- 
prietor retained  for  himself  the  sole  right  of  determining 
the  manner  of  conducting  elections  and  of  making  election 
returns.  Up  to  that  time  the  writ  of  election,  which  was 
issued  to  the  sheriff,  simply  commanded  that  officer  to  pro- 
claim, as  soon  as  convenient,  to  the  qualified  electors  of 
his  county,  that  an  election  was  to  be  held  at  a  date  named 
by  the  sheriff.  Then,  at  the  appointed  time,  he  was  to 
hold  the  election  and  make  return  thereof  to  the  secre- 
tary's office  not  later  than  a  day  named  in  the  writ.2     But 

i  L.  H.  J.,  November  8,  1770. 

2  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1637-38  to  1664, 
pp.  381 ,  425  ;  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1667  to  1687-88,  pp.  77,  78. 


THE   LEGISLATURE  209 

as  early  as  1666  a  sheriff,  who  also  held  the  office  of 
county  clerk,  was  charged  with  proceeding  with  an  elec- 
tion contrary  to  the  writ.1  In  1669  a  sheriff  caused  the 
election  of  two  delegates,  and  then  made  return  of  the 
election  of  but  one.2  And  at  the  time  of  the  threatened 
rebellion  of  1676  a  complaint  of  general  nature  was  made 
concerning  the  lack  of  freedom  in  elections.3 

A  committee  on  privileges  and  elections  first  appeared 
in  the  lower  house  in  1678.4  That  same  year  the  Assembly 
passed  an  act  in  the  preamble  of  which  the  opinion  was 
expressed  that  the  safest  and  best  rule  for  the  province  to 
follow  in  choosing  delegates  was  the  precedents  of  the  Eng- 
lish Parliament,  and  that  they  should  be  conformed  to  as 
nearly  as  the  constitution  of  Maryland  would  permit. 
The  act,  accordingly,  required  that  immediately'  after  the 
receipt  of  the  writ,  the  sheriff  should  call  a  session  of  the 
county  court,  and  during  its  session  proclaim,  or  cause  to 
be  proclaimed,  to  the  qualified  electors  of  his  county 
that  there  was  to  be  an  election  of  delegates  at  the  next 
session  of  the  county  court,  which  was  to  be  held  within 
a  reasonable  time  after  the  notice.  After  the  election  the 
sheriff  should  make  return  thereof  to  both  the  lord  pro- 
prietor and  the  chancellor.  These  returns  should  state  the 
time  and  the  place  of  the  election,  and  contain  the  names 
of  the  persons  chosen  and  the  signature  of  each  voter.  A 
penalty  of  one  hundred  pounds  sterling  should  be  imposed 
on  any  sheriff  who  neglected  his  duty  with  respect  to 
holding  the  election  or  making  returns.  Finally,  provi- 
sion was  made  for  the  choice  of  two  delegates  by  the 
mayor,   recorder,   aldermen,  and   common  council  of  the 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1666  to  1676,  p.  74. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  187. 

3  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1667  to  1687-88,  p.  149. 

4  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1678  to  1683,  p.  6. 


210  MARYLAND    AS   A    PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

city  of  St.  Mary's.  The  lord  proprietor  disallowed  this 
act  before  an  election  was  held  under  it.1  But  after  1689 
one  of  the  charges  was  the  violation  of  the  freedom  of 
elections  ; 2  and  at  the  beginning  of  the  royal  government 
requirements  similar  to  those  of  the  act  of  1678  became 
law,  and  with  but  slight  modifications  and  additions  re- 
mained in  force  until  1776.  The  principal  additions  were 
made  in  1715,  when  it  was  required  that  writs  should  be 
issued  at  least  forty  days  before  the  meeting  of  the 
Assembly,  and  that  the  election  should  not  be  held  within 
less  than  ten  days  from  the  time  the  sheriff  gave  notice  of 
it.  From  that  year,  also,  the  sheriff  was  required  to  pre- 
pare for  each  delegate  two  indentures,  each  "  having  there- 
unto the  sheriff's  hand  and  seal,  and  the  hands  and  seals 
of  the  several  electors  by  them  subscribed."  One  of 
those  indentures  the  sheriff  was  to  transmit  to  the  chan- 
cellor, while  the  other  he  was  to  keep  for  his  own  justifi- 
cation. 

Ever  after  the  establishment  of  the  royal  government, 
the  lower  house  was  active  in  asserting  its  control  over 
both  the  sheriff  and  the  manner  of  conducting  elections. 
Its  committee  on  privileges  and  elections  always  made  its 
report  some  time  during  the  first  session  after  an  election. 
In  that  report  an  election  was  not  infrequently  judged  as 
undue.  When  it  had  been  so  declared  by  a  vote  of  the 
whole  house,  the  speaker  issued  his  warrant  to  the  secretary 
for  a  new  election.  Moreover,  when  such  undue  election 
was  ascribed  to  the  negligence  of  a  sheriff,  that  sheriff  was 
called  before  the  house  to  answer  for  the  same.  In  1735, 
the  house,  by  a  majority  of  only  one,  resolved  that  it 
should  not  necessarily  be  conclusive  evidence  that  a  per- 
son was  entitled  to  vote  merely  because  he  swore  that  he 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1671  to  1681,  p.  378. 

2  Ibid.,  1687-88  to  1693,  p.  215. 


THE   LEGISLATURE  211 

possessed  the  visible  personal  estate  required  by  law  to 
qualify  him  as  an  elector.1 

In  1732  an  act  of  assembly,  to  prevent  bribery  and  cor- 
ruption in  elections  in  the  city  of  Annapolis,  required 
every  elector  to  take  an  oath  that  he  had  not  been  bribed. 
The  same  act  declared  that  any  one  found  guilty  of  per- 
jury, by  reason  of  the  oath  prescribed,  should,  in  addition 
to  the  usual  penalty  for  perjury,  be  allowed  neither  to 
vote  at  any  future  election  nor  to  be  chosen  a  delegate. 
But  the  lord  proprietor  disallowed  this  act.  Again,  in 
1745,  a  bill  in  the  lower  house,  for  the  better  regula- 
tion of  elections,  failed  to  become  a  law.  In  1749  the 
lower  house  resolved  that  it  was  "  a  high  infringement  of 
and  a  dangerous  attack  upon  the  liberties  of  the  freemen  " 
of  the  province  for  a  member  of  the  upper  house  to  inter- 
est, intermeddle,  or  concern  himself  in  an  election  of 
delegates.2  Four  years  later  that  house  passed  the  fol- 
lowing resolutions :  "  Resolved  unanimously  that  all  the 
statutes  of  England  made  for  the  security,  confirmation, 
or  advancement  of  the  rights,  liberties,  and  privileges  of 
the  British  subjects  for  the  prevention  and  detection  of 
bribery  and  corruption  and  the  maintenance  and  preserva- 
tion of  freedom  in  elections,  the  direction,  regulation  of 
returning  officers  in  their  duty,  and  the  qualification  of 
electors,  except  in  such  cases  wherein  sufficient  provision 
hath  been  or  shall  be  established  by  acts  of  assembly, 
have  the  force  of  laws  within  this  province  and  as  such 
ought  uniformly  and  inviolably  to  be  received  and  ob- 
served." 

"  Resolved  that  it  is  and  hath  been  a  duty  incumbent 
on  every  elector  of  a  delegate  or  burgess  to  serve  in 
assembly  for  this  province  to  take  the  oath  of  an  elector 
prescribed  to  be  taken  by  the  statute   second  of  George 

1  L.  H.  J.,  April  3,  1735.  2  Ibid.,  June  10,  1794. 


212       '    MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

the  second,  Chapter  XXIV,  before  he  is  admitted  to  vote 
or  be  polled  at  any  election  if  required  as  is  directed  by 
the  said  statute."1  Finally,  in  1768,  it  was  resolved  that 
in  every  case  in  which  it  should  be  found  that  there  had 
been  treating  —  the  smallness  or  greatness  of  the  treat 
not  to  be  considered  —  from  the  time  of  the  issue  of  the 
election  writ  until  after  the  closing  of  the  polls  the  elec- 
tion would  be  declared  void.2 

From  very  early  times  the  people  took  a  lively  interest 
in  the  elections  ;  but  it  was  not  until  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century  that  such  interest  became  decidedly 
intense.  Party  spirit  existed ;  but  it  was  not  so  much 
the  government  party  against  the  anti-government  party 
as  it  was  the  radicals  against  the  moderates,  or  the  law- 
yers against  the  merchants.  There  is  no  direct  proof  that 
the  candidates  were  ever  nominated  in  caucus ;  and  yet 
the  fierce  election  contest  in  Baltimore  County  in  the  year 
1752,  in  which  each  party  had  its  four  candidates,  and  a 
few  similar  cases,  indicate  that  there  was  sufficient  organiza- 
tion in  some  of  the  counties  for  a  caucus.3  It  is  also  clear 
that  by  the  year  1750  elections  were  preceded  by  much 
loud  and  enthusiastic  electioneering.  Although  the  law 
left  the  sheriff  wide  discretion  as  to  the  manner  in  which 
he  might  conduct  an  election,  in  practice  that  officer  was 
to  a  considerable  degree  subject  to  the  direction  of  the 
candidates.  The  voting  took  place  in  the  courthouse, 
where  one  or  two  sworn  clerks  recorded  the  vote  of  each 
elector  as  it  was  given  viva  voce.  If  the  crowd  was  too 
great,  only  a  few  at  a  time  were  admitted  into  the  build- 
ing.4    The  polls  were  usually  kept  open  only  a  day  or 

1  L.  H.  J.,  October  18,  1753. 

2  Maryland  Gazette,  June  30,  1768. 

8  Ibid.,  February  13,  and  March  5,  1752. 
4  Ibid.,  February  13,  1752. 


THE   LEGISLATURE  213 

two ;  but  if  any  of  the  candidates  could  show  cause,  they 
were  kept  open  for  an  entire  week. 

Until  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century,  the  governor 
and  the  upper  house  occasionally  declared  with  effect  that 
a  certain  delegate  was  disqualified  to  sit  in  the  lower 
house.1  But  ever  after  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  the  lower  house  was  the  sole  judge  of  the  elec- 
tions, returns,  and  qualifications  of  its  own  members. 
In  the  year  1722  it  resolved  that  thereafter  any  delegate 
who  accepted  an  office  or  pension  from  or  under  the  gov- 
ernment, should  be  incapable  of  sitting  longer  as  one  of 
its  members ; 2  and  in  the  year  1734,  by  a  vote  of  thirty- 
seven  to  four,  that  body  expelled  four  of  its  members  for 
accepting  office.3  However,  after  it  had  done  so,  the  gov- 
ernor called  it  before  him  in  the  upper  house  and  told  its 
members  that  no  law  of  the  province  had  disqualified  the 
persons  in  question,  charged  them  with  attempting  to 
give  their  own  resolution  a  force  equal  to  an  act  of  the 
whole  assembly,  and  of  thereby  "  assuming  a  power  entirely 
independent  and  indeed  destructive  of  the  other  parts  of 
the  legislature  and  of  the  liberties  and  properties  of  his 
Majesty's  subjects."4  He  then  dissolved  the  Assembly; 
and  although  three  of  the  four  who  had  been  expelled 
were  reelected,  so,  also,  were  nearly  all  of  the  other  old 
members  returned. 

In  1750  another  expulsion  of  two  members  for  the  same 
reason  was  not  followed  by  an  immediate  dissolution  ;  5 
and  from  that  year  until  1774  the  lower  house  never 
wearied  of  sending  to  the  upper  house  a  bill  for  preserv- 
ing the  independence  of  the  former  by  providing  that 
no   one  should  accept  an  office  while  he  was  a  member 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1678  to  1683,  p.  115 

etseq.  2  L.  H.  J.,  October  29,  1722.  8  Ibid.,  March  25,  1734. 

*  Ibid. ,  March  25, 1734.    •  Ibid.,  May  8  and  9, 1750 ;  also  June  20,  1746. 


214  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

of  the  lower  house,  or  for  a  certain  number  of  years  after 
he  ceased  to  be  a  member,  and  that  no  one  who  already 
held  an  office  should  be  qualified  to  become  a  member. 
The  office  of  justice  of  a  county  court,  however,  seems  to 
have  been  made  an  exception  in  that  bill.  The  upper 
house  paid  little  attention  to  the  bill,  until  1774,  when 
it  gave  the  members  of  the  lower  house  an  opportunity  to 
show  the  type  of  their  patriotism  by  passing  the  bill  with 
a  few  amendments,  the  chief  of  which  required  that  mem- 
bers of  both  houses  should  give  their  service  in  assembly 
free  of  all  charge,  and  that  all  who  were  elected  delegates, 
should,  at  the  time  of  taking  their  usual  oaths  to  the  gov- 
ernment, take  also  the  following  oath  :  "  I,  A.  B.,  do 
solemnly  swear  that  I  have  made  use  of  no  means  directly 
or  indirectly  to  deceive  any  elector  in  order  or  with  the 
intent  or  design  to  obtain  or  procure  his  vote  either  for 
myself  or  any  other  person  and  that  while  I  shall  serve  as 
a  delegate  or  deputy  in  the  General  Assembly  of  this  prov- 
ince, I  will  truly  and  faithfully,  upon  all  occasions,  consent 
and  agree  to  the  passing,  ordaining,  and  enacting  of  all 
such  resolves,  regulations,  and  laws  as  I  shall  believe  in 
my  conscience  to  be  just  and  conducive  to  the  peace,  real 
welfare,  and  prosperity  of  this  province  without  any  other 
regard  or  view  whatsoever,  and  that  I  will  oppose  and 
dissent  from  all  resolves,  regulations,  and  laws  which  shall 
be  proposed  by  any  person,  and  which  I  shall  believe  in 
my  conscience  to  be  unjust  or  not  conducive  to  the 
peace,  real  welfare,  and  prosperity  of  this  province,  and 
that  I  will  not  in  any  manner  directly  or  indirectly 
misrepresent  my  own  conduct  or  views  as  a  delegate 
or  deputy,  or  the  conduct  or  views  of  any  other  delegate 
or  deputy  in  the  general  assembly  in  order  to  gain  the 
vote  of  any  elector  for  myself  or  any  other  person  or  to 
persuade  or  incline  any  elector,  not  to  give  his  vote  for 


THE   LEGISLATURE  215 

any  person  who  shall  or  may  be  a  candidate  at  any  elec- 
tion."1 It  is  perhaps  unnecessary  to  add  that  the  bill  as 
thus  amended  was  not  again  heard  from,  and  that  it  was 
well  an  opportunity  was  then  so  close  at  hand  for  all  to 
direct  their  patriotic  emotions  in  another  channel. 

Previous  to  the  Revolution  of  1689  there  was  a  marked 
dearth  of  parliamentary  skill  on  the  side  of  the  opposition 
in  the  lower  house.  Although  on  some  occasions  mes- 
sages were  boldly  and  plainly  worded,  they  were  wanting 
in  persuasive  and  convincing  force.  The  entire  bearing 
of  the  opposition  was  of  the  nature  of  the  sturdy  planter 
or  farmer  rather  than  of  the  skilled  parliamentarian.  It 
was  a  body  with  but  a  very  limited  knowledge  of  English 
law  and  without  able  leadership.  Then,  too,  as  already 
observed,  during  the  administration  of  the  first  Charles 
Calvert,  the  opposition  was  weakened  as  well  as  the  sup- 
porters of  the  government  strengthened  by  his  interfer- 
ence in  elections.  In  1672  he  wrote  to  the  lord  proprietor 
as  follows  :  "  Mr.  Notley  is  now  chosen  speaker  of  our 
assembly,  he  and  Mr.  John  Morecroft  being  chosen  bur- 
gesses from  the  city  of  St.  Mary's,  and  by  that  means  I 
got  him  into  the  assembly.  Though  Dr.  Wharton  be  a 
good  understanding  man,  yet  Dr.  Morecroft  is  much  better 
to  our  purpose,  being  the  best  lawyer  in  the  country, 
and  has  always  been  (upon  other  assemblies)  a  great  as- 
serter  of  your  Lordship's  charter  and  the  rights  and  privi- 
leges thereof.  I  durst  not  put  it  to  an  election  in  the 
counties,  but  took  this  way  which  I  knew  would  certainly 
do  what  I  desired.  And  now  I  have  got  Mr.  Notley  into 
the  chair,  I  have  assured  him  that  with  your  Lordship's 
leave  I  am  resolved  to  keep  him  there  as  long  as  he  and 
I  live  together."2  Furthermore,  at  almost  every  election 
during  that  early  period  less  than  twenty-five  per  cent  of 

i  U.  H.  J.,  April  16,  1764.  2  Calvert  Papers,  No.  1,  p.  264. 


216  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

the  old  members  was  reelected.  Consequently,  advances 
toward  greater  parliamentary  skill  and  able  leadership 
were  slow. 

But  during  the  period  of  the  royal  government  several 
able  lawyers  made  their  appearance  in  the  province.  When 
they  had  found  their  way  into  the  lower  house,  the  once 
stiff  blunt  message  slowly  began  to  give  way  to  one  that 
was  more  logical,  graceful,  and  fiery.  Occasionally  there 
was  a  reelection  of  a  larger  portion  of  the  old  members ; 
until,  finally,  from  the  time  of  the  outbreak  of  the  contro- 
versy over  English  statutes,  in  1722,  until  the  end  of  the 
proprietary  government,  there  was  seldom  an  election  in 
which  at  least  fifty  per  cent  of  the  old  members  were  not 
reelected  —  sometimes  even  sixty  or  seventy  per  cent. 
From  1T40  there  were  always  a  few  members,  like  Henry 
Hooper,  Thomas  Worthington,  John  Mackall,  and  Phil 
Hammond,  who  had  seen  service  in  that  house  for  twenty 
years  or  more.  It  is  unquestionably  true,  however,  that 
from  1739  to  1760  the  leaders  of  the  opposition,  such  as 
Phil  Hammond,  were  patriots  of  an  inferior  type.  They 
were  unreasoning  radicals,  determined  to  oppose  the  gov- 
ernment in  every  possible  way,  even  to  the  sacrifice  of  the 
real  welfare  of  the  country,  and  to  delude  their  ignorant 
constituents  in  order  to  retain  power.1  In  1749  the  com- 
mittee on  elections  and  privileges  reported  that  it  had  of 
late  become  customary  for  candidates  long  before  and  at 
the  time  of  election  to  give  uncommon  entertainments  and 
there,  after  getting  people  drunk,  get  their  promise.2  In 
1754  Governor  Sharpe,  after  giving  the  lord  proprietor 
an  account  of  the  conduct  of  the  lower  house,  wrote  :  "  I 
beg  to  ask  your  Lordship's  consideration  whether  it  be 
impracticable  or  improper  to  fall  upon  any  method  to  put 
a  stop  to  such  perverseness  as  might  generally  be   per- 

1  Calvert  Papers,  No.  2,  p.  93  et  seq.  2  L.  H.  J.,  June  17,  1749. 


THE   LEGISLATURE  217 

ceived  in  the  proceedings  of  the  lower  house  of  assembly 
which  is  in  a  great  measure  owing  to  the  short  duration 
of  our  sessions  which  terminate  at  the  end  of  three  years. 
Few  gentlemen  will  submit  so  frequently  to  the  inconven- 
iences that  such  a  canvass  for  seats  in  that  house  must 
necessarily  subject  themselves  to.  By  which  means  there 
are  too  many  instances  of  the  lowest  persons,  at  least  men 
of  small  fortunes,  no  soul,  and  very  mean  capacity,  appear- 
ing as  representatives  of  their  respective  counties.  As 
there  would  be  no  want,  I  apprehend,  of  gentlemen  to 
appear  as  candidates  if  the  drudgery  of  electioneering 
was  to  return  less  frequently,  I  submit  to  your  Lordship's 
wisdom  whether  there  may  be  any  impropriety  (if  a  more 
agreeable  choice  of  members  should  be  made)  in  continu- 
ing the  next  assembly  for  more  years  than  has  been  lately 
usual  or  customary." *  The  interval  between  elections  was 
not  lengthened.  But  Hammond  died  in  1760,  and  two 
years  after  his  death  the  same  governor  wrote  :  "  We 
have  had  a  general  election  at  which  many  well-behaved, 
sensible  men  were  chosen  in  the  stead  of  such  as  I  never 
desired  to  see  again  in  the  house."  2 

From  that  time  until  the  Revolution  the  leading  mem- 
bers of  the  lower  house  were  mostly  able  lawyers  from 
such  of  the  best  families  of  the  province  as  the  Golds- 
boroughs,  Bordleys,  Pacas,  Keys,  Halls,  Johnsons,  Tilgh- 
mans,  Chases,  Gales,  Worthingtons,  Hoopers,  Ringgolds, 
Ridgleys,  Lloyds,  and  Hollidays. 

Finally,  during  the  last  years  of  the  proprietary  gov- 
ernment, a  capable  observer  wrote  as  follows  with  respect 
to  the  lower  house  :  "  The  delegates  returned  are  persons 
of  the  greatest  consequence  in  their  different  counties, 
and  many  of  them  are  frequently  acquainted  with  the 

1  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  I,  p.  68. 

2  Ibid.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  24. 


218  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

political  and  commercial  interests  of  their  constituents. 
I  have  frequently  heard  subjects  debated  with  great 
powers  of  eloquence  and  force  of  reason ;  and  the  utmost 
regularity  and  propriety  distinguish  the  whole  of  their 
proceedings."1 

In  1650,  the  year  in  which  the  representative  system 
became  permanent,  each  delegate  received  fifty  pounds  of 
tobacco  —  equivalent  to  ten  or  twelve  shillings  —  for 
each  day's  service  in  assembly,  besides  an  allowance  to 
cover  the  necessary  ferry  expenses.  In  1661,  after  the 
price  of  tobacco  had  fallen,  each  delegate  received  150 
pounds  of  tobacco  a  day  besides  the  ferry  expenses.  But 
in  1662  the  members  of  the  upper  house,  who  had  hitherto 
received  nothing  from  the  country  for  their  service  in 
assembly,  made  a  request  for  a  legislative  enactment  to 
provide  payment  for  their  own  services  as  well.  The  con- 
sequence of  which  was  that  from  that  time  until  after  1688 
the  members  of  the  upper  house  continued  to  receive  from 
the  country  no  compensation  for  their  service  while  the 
allowance  to  the  delegates  was  reduced  to  payment  only 
for  their  food  and  lodging,  during  the  session,  and  the 
necessary  ferry  expenses.2 

Until  1676  the  allowance  to  the  delegates  from  any  one 
county  was  paid  by  that  county,  although  levied  upon  it 
by  the  General  Assembly  ;  but  from  that  year  the  allow- 
ance to  delegates  was  paid  in  the  public  levy  on  the 
whole  province.  When  the  upper  house  was  asked  to 
consent  to  the  change,  it  expressed  the  desire  that  its 
members  should  be  allowed  200  pounds  of  tobacco  a 
day,  while  those  of  the  lower  house  should  be  allowed 
150  pounds.3     But  its  desire  was  again  left  unsatisfied  ; 

i  Eddis,  p.  126. 

2  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1637-38  to  1664,  pp. 
439,  440,  456.  8  Ibid.,  1666  to  1676,  p.  509. 


THE   LEGISLATURE  219 

and  in  1682  the  lower  house  resolved  that  its  members 
were  the  only  representatives  of  the  freemen,  and  that  the 
public  ought  not  to  bear  the  charge  or  expense  of  the 
members  of  the  upper  house.1 

Under  the  royal  government,  however,  an  act  of 
assembly  was  passed  which  allowed  150  pounds  of 
tobacco  a  day  to  the  members  of  the  upper  house  and 
140  pound  to  the  members  of  the  lower  house,  besides 
itinerant  charges.  Although,  on  several  occasions,  propo- 
sitions were  offered  to  reduce  that  allowance  or  to  dis- 
pense with  it  entirely,  it  may  be  doubted  if  any  of  them 
were  strictly  serious.  For  the  lower  house  usually  made 
the  proposition  of  a  one-half  reduction  in  connection 
with  some  other  movement,  such  as  the  reduction  of  fees; 
and  the  upper  house  replied  to  the  same  by  proposing 
that  both  houses  should  serve  the  country  gratuitously. 
With  the  exception  of  the  year  1733,  the  lower  house 
seems  never  to  have  considered  the  question  of  going 
that  far.2  Consequently,  the  allowance  as  first  fixed  by 
the  law  under  the  royal  government  remained  unchanged 
during  the  proprietary  government  of  the  eighteenth 
century. 

The  organization  of  the  lower  house  and  the  manner 
of  its  procedure,  with  but  few  interruptions,  grew  more 
and  more  like  that  of  the  British  House  of  Commons. 
Its  officers  were  at  first  only  the  speaker  and  the  clerk  ; 
but  it  soon  had  a  doorkeeper  and  a  sergeant-at-arms.  It 
always  chose  its  own  speaker.  The  choice,  however,  had 
to  be  confirmed  by  the  governor.  At  the  time  the 
Assembly  was  'divided  into  two  houses  the  governor  chose 
the  clerk  of  each  house.  From  then  until  1671  the  lower 
house  usually  chose  its  own  clerk.     From  that  year  until 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1678  to  1683,  p.  373. 

2  L.  H.  J.,  April  10,  1733. 


220  MARYLAND    AS    A    PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

the  beginning  of  the  royal  government  the  governor  or 
the  lord  proprietor  seems  to  have  been  permitted  to  choose 
that  officer.  Again,  in  1708,  the  governor  attempted  to 
revive  the  practice  of  the  period  from  1671  to  1689. 1  He, 
however,  was  unsuccessful,  and  the  house  ever  after  con- 
tinued to  choose  its  own  clerk,  although  that  choice  had 
to  be  confirmed  by  the  governor.2 

Previous  to  1689  the  small  membership  of  the  lower 
house  and  the  very  limited  amount  of  business  transacted 
therein  were  unfavorable  to  the  development  of  a  com- 
mittee system.  A  committee  to  audit  accounts  was,  how- 
ever, early  appointed  ;  and  to  that  committee  was  at 
times  joined  either  a  part  or  the  whole  of  the  other  house. 
A  committee  on  laws,  either  with  or  without  some  mem- 
bers of  the  upper  house,  was  occasionally  appointed  to 
prepare  bills.  In  1678  a  committee  on  privileges  and 
elections  was  appointed.  But  it  was  not  until  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  royal  government  that  the  committee 
on  privileges  and  elections,  the  committee  on  laws,  the 
committee  on  grievances,  and  the  committee  on  accounts 
became  standing  committees.  With  the  exception  of  the 
one  on  laws  they  were  continued  until  1776.  From  1722 
the  committee  on  grievances  was  also  a  committee  on 
courts  of  justice  and  instructed  to  inquire  into  the  forms 
of  oaths,  commissions,  and  other  public  documents. 
Finally,  from  1732  there  was  usually  a  committee  to 
view  the  condition  of  the  arms  and  ammunition  and  to 
inspect  the  accounts  relating  to  the  fund  therefor,  and 
also  a  joint  committee  of  the  two  houses  to  inspect  the 
accounts  of  the  paper  currency  office. 

Previous  to  1689  the  procedure  upon  opening  a  newly 
elected  assembly  was  very  short  and  simple.  It  con- 
sisted in  little  more  than  the  choice  of  a   speaker,  his 

i  L.  H.  J.,  September  27,  1708.  2  Ibid.,  May  11,  1749. 


THE   LEGISLATURE  221 

acceptance  by  the  governor,  and  the  passing  of  some  rules 
of  order.  Until  1678  the  governor's  opening  speech 
seems  to  have  been  of  little  consequence.  Until  1682 
the  speaker  did  not  ask  for  privileges.  No  oath  was 
taken  by  the  delegates  before  1678.  Prior  to  1692 
there  were  no  standing  committees  to  appoint;  and  un- 
til 1722  there  were  no  standing  resolutions  to  agree 
upon. 

But  from  the  closing  years  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
after  a  newly  elected  assembly  had  met,  the  order  of  pro- 
cedure varied  little,  and  was  somewhat  as  follows :  Two 
delegates  first  informed  the  governor  that  a  sufficient  num- 
ber of  delegates  had  met  to  compose  a  lower  house.  Two 
members  of  the  upper  house  and  its  clerk  then  entered 
the  lower  house  and  administered  to  each  delegate  pres- 
ent the  oaths  of  allegiance,  supremacy,  abjuration,  and 
test.  When  all  had  taken  those  oaths,  two  members 
of  the  upper  house  were  sent  to  tell  the  delegates  that 
the  governor  required  their  attendance  in  the  upper  house. 
As  soon  as  they  had  come,  the  governor  required  them 
to  return  to  their  own  house  and  choose  a  speaker. 
When  the  choice  had  been  made,  two  members  of  the  lower 
house  informed  the  governor.  Whereupon  two  members 
of  the  upper  house  were  sent  to  tell  the  lower  house  that 
the  governor  required  them  to  come  to  the  upper  house 
to  present  their  speaker.  After  the  governor  had  approved 
of  the  choice  of  a  speaker,  that  officer,  in  the  name  of  the 
lower  house,  desired  the  governor,  on  the  lord  proprietor's 
behalf,  to  allow  the  delegates  freedom  of  speech  and  all  \ 
other  of  their  ancient  privileges  and  liberties.  After  those 
were  promised,  the  governor  delivered  his  opening  speech 
to  both  houses. 

The  delegates  then  returned  to  their  own  house  and 
chose  a  clerk.     Two  members  of  the  lower  house  at  once 


222  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

informed  the  governor  of  their  choice,  and  desired  his 
approval.  Upon  receiving  that,  two  members  of  the 
lower  house  went  with  the  clerk  to  the  upper  house  to  see 
him  qualify  by  taking  the  several  oaths.  A  sergeant- 
at-arms  and  a  doorkeeper  were  next  chosen.  Finally, 
after  the  lower  house  had  agreed  upon  its  rules  of  order, 
appointed  its  committees,  and — after  1722 — agreed  upon 
its  standing  resolutions,  it  was  ready  to  consider  the  gov- 
ernor's opening  speech. 

Whatever  bills  originated  in  the  lower  house,  as  well 
as  messages  and  addresses,  were  usually  framed  by  a 
part  or  the  whole  of  the  committee  on  laws.  No  bill  was 
ordinarily  read  twice  on  the  same  day.  After  any  bill 
had  passed  the  second  reading  it  was  sent  by  a  com- 
mittee to  the  other  house.1  The  methods  of  adjusting 
differences  between  the  two  houses  were  by  messages  and 
conferences.  A  bill  which  had  passed  two  readings  in  one 
house  might  pass  the  second  reading  in  the  other  with 
some  amendments.  But,  whether  amended  or  not,  no  bill 
could  become  a  law  until  it  had  passed  the  third  reading 
in  both  houses  and  received  the  governor's  signature, 
which  was  given  in  the  upper  house  usually  at  the  close 
of  the  session,  both  houses  being  present. 

During  the  first  few  years  after  the  founding  of  the 
colony,  the  lord  proprietor  sought  to  reserve  to  himself 
or  to  the  governor  in  council  the  sole  right  of  initiating 
legislation.  For  that  reason  he  disallowed  all  the  acts 
passed  by  the  first  Assembly,  in  1634-35,  which  it  seems 
probable  was  called  without  his  special  directions;  and 
at  about  the  time  that  he  ordered  his  dissent  to  be  pub- 
lished, he  sent  over  a  draught  of  several  laws,  authorized 
the  governor  to  prepare  others,  and  gave  the  freemen  no 
other  option  than  to  pass  all  of  those  laws  without  any 

1  From  the  year  1732  the  yeas  and  nays  were  frequently  recorded. 


THE   LEGISLATURE  223 

amendment  or  else  to  pass  none  at  all.1  When  the  Assem- 
bly had  given  them  some  consideration,  the  governor  and 
the  secretary  gave  fourteen  votes  for  themselves  and  their 
proxies  in  favor  of  their  passing,  but  all  of  the  remaining 
thirty-seven  votes  were  given  in  opposition  to  them. 
Later  in  the  same  session  it  was  voted  that  those  laws 
should  be  taken  up  one  by  one  instead  of  as  a  whole  body. 
Finally  the  Assembly,  again  practically  assuming  the  right 
of  initiative,  passed  such  acts  as  it  saw  fit ;  and  it  was 
reported  that  both  the  governor  and  the  secretary  had 
declared  the  laws  sent  by  the  lord  proprietor  to  be  unfit 
for  the  colony.2  At  any  rate,  the  governor  wrote  to  the 
lord  proprietor  that  since  there  were  so  many  things  in 
them  which  were  unsuitable  to  the  people's  good  and  no 
way  profitable  to  the  lord  proprietor,  and  since  the  free- 
men had  been  given  the  privilege  neither  of  selection 
among  them  nor  of  amending  them,  they  desired  to  sus- 
pend them  all.  Moreover,  the  governor  gave  it  as  his 
opinion  that  those  passed  by  the  Assembly  would  be  as 
much  to  the  lord  proprietor's  honor  and  profit  as  those 
sent  by  his  lordship.3  The  result  was  that  although 
the  lord  proprietor  rejected  this  second  body  of  laws 
sent  over  to  him,  he  surrendered,  in  1638,  his  claim  to  the 
sole  right  of  initiating  legislation,  and  declared  that  for 
the  future  all  acts  passed  by  the  Assembly,  assented  to 
by  the  governor,  and  not  contrary  to  the  laws  of  England, 
should  be  in  force,  so  long  as  he  did  not  declare  his  rejec- 
tion of  them.4 

But  troublous  times  followed ;  and  about  ten  years  later, 
just  after  the  suppression  of  a  rebellion,  the  lord  proprietor 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1636  to  1667,  p.  51. 

2  Calvert  Papers,  No.  1,  p.  158. 
8  Ibid.,  p.  189  et  seq. 

4  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1637-38  to  1664,  p.  31. 


224  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

endeavored  to  purchase  some  control  over  the  initiation  of 
legislation  by  sending  over  a  body  of  sixteen  laws,  and 
declaring  that  only  on  condition  that  the  Assembly,  with- 
out amendment,  passed  them  all  as  perpetual  laws — that 
is,  laws  without  any  limitation  as  to  their  duration  — 
would  he  agree  to  allow  the  country  to  receive  one-half 
of  his  customs  duties  on  tobacco  exported  in  Dutch  ships. 
To  such  a  proposition,  however,  the  Assembly  replied  : 
"  We  do  humbly  request  your  Lordship  hereafter  to  send 
us  no  more  such  bodies  of  laws,  which  serve  to  little  other 
end  than  to  fill  our  heads  with  suspicious  jealousies  and 
dislikes  of  that  which  verily  we  understand  not."  1 

Thus  ended  in  failure  the  lord  proprietor's  second 
attempt  to  control  the  initiative  in  legislation.  He  never 
made  another.  After  the  legislative  Assembly  had  once 
acquired  that  right,  it  never  lost  it.  Charles  Calvert,  how- 
ever, first  as  governor  and  later  as  lord  proprietor,  was 
accustomed  to  cause  bills  to  be  introduced  into  the  Assem- 
bly ;  and  in  case  the  lower  house  refused  to  pass  them,  he 
would  call  that  body  before  him  in  the  upper  house  and 
there  exert  all  the  pressure  at  his  command. 

From  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century  dis- 
agreement with  respect  to  any  proposed  legislation  was 
attended  to  almost  solely  by  messages  between  the  two 
houses,  between  the  governor  and  the  lower  house,  or  by 
conference  of  a  few  members  from  each  house.  Further- 
more, following  English  precedent,  from  the  establishment 
of  the  royal  government  money  bills  could  originate  only 
,in  the  lower  house.  From  1740  the  upper  house  was 
denied  the  right  to  amend  such  bills ;  and  at  times,  also, 
the  lower  house  even  declined  to  confer  with  the  other 


1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1637-38  to  1664,  pp. 
240,  241,  243  ;  also  p.  262  et  seq. 


THE   LEGISLATURE  225 

house  with  respect  to  disputed  points  in  any  bills  of  that 
kind. 

Until  1681  the  lord  proprietor  reserved  to  himself  an 
unlimited  time  in  which  to  veto  any  act  passed  by  the 
Assembly  and  assented  to  by  the  governor.  But  there 
was  no  occasion  to  charge  him  with  abuse  of  that  right 
until  1669,  when  he  vetoed  several  acts  after  they  had 
been  in  force  for  three  years.  When  he  had  done  so  the 
lower  house  presented  it  as  a  grievance  that  there  was  no 
one  in  the  province  who  was  authorized  so  to  assent  to  an 
act  that  it  could  not  thereafter  be  annulled  without  the 
consent  of  both  houses  of  Assembly.1  The  matter  was, 
however,  dropped,  and  nothing  was  heard  of  it  again  for 
twelve  years,  when  the  lord  proprietor  again  vetoed  a 
favorite  act  that  had  been  passed  three  years  before.  This 
time  the  lower  house  endeavored  to  secure  the  passage  of  an 
act  which  should  provide  that  the  governor's  assent  be  final. 
When  the  upper  house  had  refused  to  pass  it,  the  lower 
house  presented  the  lord  proprietor  with  a  petition  regard- 
ing the  matter.  In  reply  the  lord  proprietor  agreed  that 
thereafter  when  he  was  present  in  the  province  he  would 
give  his  assent  or  dissent  to  any  act  before  the  conclusion 
of  the  session  at  which  it  was  passed,  and  that  when  he 
was  out  of  the  province  he  would  give  such  assent  or  dis- 
sent within  eighteen  months  after  the  passing  of  the  act. 
Attempts  of  the  lower  house  at  the  two  following  sessions 
to  have  such  an  agreement  embodied  in  a  law  of  unlimited 
duration  were,  however,  unsuccessful,  even  though  the 
lower  house  agreed  to  extend  the  time  to  twenty  months.2 

The  Revolution  followed,  and  under  the  royal  govern- 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1666  to  1676,  p.  161 
et  seq. 

2  Ibid.,  1678  to  1683,  pp.  118, 152,  160,  175,  178, 181,  182,  508,  509,  512, 
592,  594,  596 ;  ibid.,  1684  to  1692,  pp.  34,  35,  38,  40,  49,  97,  100,  108,  388. 

Q 


226  MARYLAND   AS    A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

ment  the  right  of  the  crown  to  exercise  the  veto  power 
was  never  disputed.  Then,  from  the  time  of  the  restoration 
of  the  proprietary  government  to  the  year  1729  inclusive, 
the  lord  proprietor  vetoed  —  in  each  case  quite  promptly 
—  at  least  fifteen  acts.  After  four  of  them  had  been 
rejected  in  that  one  year,  the  lower  house  complained  of 
the  lord  proprietor's  frequent  exercise  of  the  power  as  a 
grievance,  and  as  not  warranted  by  the  charter,  and  asked 
the  upper  house  to  join  with  it  in  taking  whatever  steps 
were  deemed  necessary  to  settle  the  matter.1  It  is  diffi- 
cult to  conceive  on  what  ground  that  right  of  the  lord 
proprietor  could  have  been  seriously  called  in  question, 
except  that  the  English  crown  had  ceased  to  exercise  the 
same  right  with  respect  to  acts  of  Parliament.  Then, 
too,  the  lord  proprietor  was  a  non-resident,  whose  chief 
interest  lay  in  his  territorial  revenue.  So,  although  he 
was  in  one  sense  clear  as  to  his  right,  he,  like  the  crown, 
was  taught  to  realize  that  it  was  not  expedient  for  him  to 
make  use  of  it.  He  vetoed  an  act  in  the  year  1732,  and 
then  did  not  again  exercise  that  power  for  ten  years,  when 
he  did  so  for  the  last  time.  Thereafter,  the  lower  house 
effectively  expressed  its  doubt  as  often  as  the  question 
was  raised.2 

Still  further,  the  extreme  radicals,  under  the  influence 
of  Pennsylvania,  were  not  contented  with  denying  the 
lord  proprietor  all  right  to  act  as  a  part  of  the  legislature, 
but  they  even  denied  that  the  upper  house  had  any  place 
whatever  in  the  constitution.3  Moreover,  as  the  lower 
house  came  to  find  the  other  three  parts  of  the  legislature 
more  and  more  opposed  to  such  measures  as  it  most 
strongly  contended  for,  that  body  made  its  power  felt 
more  and  more   by  passing  resolutions   to  influence   the 

1  L.  H.  J.,  August  5,  1729  ;  see  also  Calvert  Papers,  No.  2,  pp.  69,  93. 
2L.  H.  J.,  April  27,  1758.  8  Ibid.,  December  2,  1757. 


THE   LEGISLATURE  227 

courts  as  well  as  public  opinion,1  and  by  calling  before  its 
bar  any  minor  officer  charged  with  offence.  Thus,  in 
1758,  Governor  Sharpe  wrote  the  following  :  "  Our  Lower 
House  has  indeed,  of  late  years,  claimed  a  right  of  calling 
before  them  any  person  they  thought  proper,  and  their 
commands  have  been  generally  obeyed,  though  as  gen- 
erally exclaimed  against  as  oppressive.  .  .  .  They  have 
assumed  all  the  powers  of  a  British  House  of  Commons, 
and  have  for  some  years  been  exercising  those  powers 
in  such  a  manner  as/ tended  to  render  all  the  inferior 
courts  of  judicature  contemptible  or  subservient  to  their 
purposes."2  . 

The  first  great  increase  in  the  power  of  the  Assembly1 
was  made  when  it  gained  the  right  of  initiating,  legisla- 
tion. The  second  was  at  the  beginning  of  the  period  of 
royal  government,  when  the  lower  house  gained  so  much 
control  over  its  own  organization,  and  when  the  transaction 
of  so  many  branches  of  public  business  was  taken  from 
the  council  and  put  in  charge  of  the  Assembly.  The  later 
growth  in  power  of  the  popular  branch  will  be  more  fully 
seen  after  due  attention  has  been  given  in  the  following 
chapters  to  the  great  controversies  in  Assembly  over 
important  questions,  such,  for  example,  as  those  relating  to 
the  English  statutes,  officers'  fees,  dues  of  the  clergy,  the 
militia  law,  a  fund  for  arms  and  ammunition,  license  money 
from  ordinaries,  fines  and  forfeitures,  the  support  of  the 
council  of  state,  taxing  the  most  lucrative  offices  and  the 
lord  proprietor's  estates  and  quit-rents,  and  the  appoint- 
ment of  an  agent  to  represent  the  lower  house  before  the 
home  government. 

1  L.  H.  J.,  March  20,  1732-1733,  and  April  10,  1733. 

2  Sharpe' s  Correspondence,   Vol.  II,  p.  124;   also  L.  H.  J.,  May  11 

and  20,  1738. 


CHAPTER   III 

THE  ADMINISTRATION   OF   JUSTICE 

In  accordance  with  the  old  conception  of  a  king  as  God's 
anointed,  and  therefore  the  fountain  of  justice  within  his 
realm,  the  lord  proprietor  was,  in  theory,  solely  intrusted 
with  the  power  to  administer  justice  in  Maryland.  But 
he,  in  his  turn,  transferred  the  power  to  administer  it  to 
the  governor  as  chief  justice,  chancellor,  and  admiral,  to 
the  members  of  the  council  as  associate  justices,  and 
to  such  other  officers  as  the  governor  in  council  chose  to 
appoint  for  that  purpose.  In  the  early  commissions,  the 
governor,  as  chief  justice,  was  given  the  sole  authority  to 
hear,  determine,  and  pronounce  judgment  in  all  cases  both 
civil  and  criminal,  save  that  whenever  life,  member,  or 
freehold  was  at  stake,  the  lord  proprietor  required  that  at 
least  two  of  the  council  should  sit  as  judges  with  him.1 
And  in  those  same  commissions  each  member  of  the  coun- 
cil was  made  a  justice  of  the  peace. 

However,  in  matters  pertaining  to  justice,  the  usage  and 
custom  of  the  mother  country  had  an  important  influence 
on  Maryland  practice.  As  in  the  old  Anglo-Saxon  shire- 
moot,  and  particularly  in  the  county  of  Durham,  the  free- 
men had  been  accustomed  to  meet  in  the  capacity  of  a 
law  court,  as  well  as  in  that  of  a  legislative  assembly,  so 
also,  in  Maryland,  previous  to  the  division  of  the  Assem- 
bly into  two  houses,  that  body  occasionally  tried  offenders 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1636  to  1667,  p.  53. 
228 


THE   ADMINISTRATION   OF   JUSTICE  229 

charged  with  having  committed  any  offence,  from  that  of  a 
simple  misdemeanor  to  that  of  piracy,  murder,  or  treason.1 
But  after  the  division,  the  judicial  functions  of  the  upper 
house  were  restricted  to  those  of  a  high  court  of  appeals, 
and  from  1692  even  that  jurisdiction  was  intrusted  to  the 
governor  and  council  ;  while  the  jurisdiction  of  the  lower 
house  as  a  law  court  became  limited  to  the  trial  of  minor 
officers  charged  with  neglect  or  injustice  in  the  perform- 
ance of  their  duties. 

But  the  Assembly  at  no  time  tried  more  than  a  small 
part  of  all  the  cases  that  arose.  By  the  year  1638  the  gov- 
ernor had  become  chief  justice,  and  the  members  of  the 
council  associate  justices  in  what  was  called  the  county 
court,  which,  next  to  the  Assembly,  was  the  supreme 
court  of  the  province.2  Below  the  governor  as  chief  jus- 
tice and  the  members  of  the  council  as  associate  justices 
were  the  inferior  justices  of  the  courts  in  the  smaller  local 
districts.  By  the  year  1642  the  name  of  the  court  in 
which  the  governor  and  council  were  justices  was  changed 
from  county  court  to  provincial  court.  From  that  year 
until  1685,  with  the  governor  and  council  as  justices,  the 
provincial  court  was  in  no  way  limited  or  restricted  in 
original  jurisdiction  over  any  case  arising  anywhere 
within  the  province,  and  it  had  appellate  jurisdiction  over 
all  cases  brought  from  the  county  courts.  Under  such 
conditions  it  was  not  to  be  expected  that  there  would  be 
many  appeals  from  the  governor  and  council,  sitting  as  a 
provincial  court,  to  the  governor  and  council  sitting  as  a 
court  of  appeals  in  the  upper  house  of  the  legislative  body. 
There  were,  however,  several  such  instances  ;  and  in  a  few 
cases  the  judgment  of  the  lower  court  was  reversed. 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1637-38  to  1664,  pp. 
16,  17,  18,  119. 

2  Ibid.,  pp.  47,  48,  49,  83. 


-1 


230  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

Of  the  courts  below  the  provincial  court  there  were,  at 
one  time  or  another,  the  manorial  courts,  the  hundred 
court,  the  county  court,  and  the  court  of  a  single  justice 
of  the  peace  for  the  recovery  of  small  debts.  But  of  the 
manorial  courts,  which  never  grew  to  any  great  importance, 
sufficient  notice  has  already  been  taken.1 

Previous  to  1650  it  does  not  appear  that  there  was  any 
erection  of  counties  in  an  express  and  formal  way  ;  yet, 
in  reality,  the  western  shore  was  treated  as  one  county, 
called  St.  Mary's,  and  the  eastern  shore  was  treated  as 
another  county,  called  Kent.  The  more  important  settle- 
ments on  the  western  shore  were  erected  into  hundreds  as 
constituent  parts  of  St.  Mary's  County,  while  those  on 
the  eastern  shore  were  erected  into  hundreds  as  constitu- 
ent parts  of  Kent  County.  Whenever  a  hundred  was 
erected,  its  head  officer  was  constituted  a  justice  of  the 
peace.  Under  him  was  the  constable.  He  was  appointed 
either  by  the  justice  or  by  the  governor,  and  was  intrusted 
with  the  duties  both  of  constable  and  coroner.  As  justice 
of  the  peace,  the  head  officer  of  the  hundred  was  given 
such  power  as  belonged  to  one  or  even  to  two  justices  of 
the  peace  in  England.  Certain  grievous  offenders  he  was 
directed  to  bind  over  to  the  county  court  for  trial  ;  but 
others  he  was  authorized  not  only  to  try  but  to  punish  by 
imprisonment,  fine,  or  corporal  punishment,  provided  the 
fine  did  not  exceed  a  certain  fixed  number  of  pounds  of 
tobacco,  or  that  the  corporal  punishment  did  not  involve 
the  loss  of  life  or  member.2 

Since  in  St.  Mary's  County  the  governor  and  council  at 
first  constituted  the  county  court  as  a  supreme  court  for 
the  entire  province,  it  was  in  Kent  County  that  what  be- 
came the  ordinary  county  court  first  began  to  develop. 

1  Supra,  pp.  52,  53. 

2  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1636  to  1667,  pp.  70,  89,  90. 


THE   ADMINISTRATION   OF   JUSTICE  231 

The  first  step  toward  the  organization  of  such  a  court  was 
taken  in  December,  1637,  when  Governor  Calvert  com- 
missioned Captain  George  Evelin  as  military  commander 
of  that  island,  authorized  him  to  choose  six  or  more  able 
persons  to  advise  him,  empowered  him  to  appoint  all  other 
officers  necessary  for  the  preservation  of  the  peace  or  the 
execution  of  justice,  and  also  authorized  him  to  hold  a 
court  as  often  as  need  should  require  for  the  trial  of  civil 
cases  not  extending  to  life  or  member.1  The  commission 
thus  constituting  the  court  for  that  county  was  for  several 
years  frequently  renewed  and  modified.  In  1639  three 
assistants  of  the  commander  were  appointed  by  the  gov- 
ernor.2 In  1642  those  assistants  of  the  commander  were 
styled  commissioners,  and  the  jurisdiction  in  civil  matters 
was  made  to  include  all  cases  not  extending  to  a  free- 
hold.3 In  the  same  year,  also,  by  act  of  assembly  express 
provision  was  made  for  appeal  from  that  court  to  the  pro- 
vincial court. 

In  1649  the  lord  proprietor  gave  instructions  for  the 
erection  of  a  new  county,  and  appointed  its  commander. 
The  powers  which  he  defined  for  that  officer  were  almost 
exactly  the  same  as  those  given  by  the  first  commission 
to  the  commander  of  Kent  Island.4  But  those  instruc- 
tions were  never  executed.  When  Anne  Arundel  County 
was  erected  the  next  year,  Governor  Stone  appointed  both 
the  commander  and  the  seven  commissioners,  and  author- 
ized the  commander,  with  any  three  or  more  of  the  com- 
missioners, to  hold  court  from  time  to  time  for  the  trial  of 
criminal  cases  not  extending  to  life  or  member,  and  all 
civil  cases,  regardless  of  value,  saving  only  the  right  of 
appeal   to  the   provincial   court   whenever   the   value  in 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1636  to  1667,  p.  59. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  88  et  seq. 

8  Ibid.,  p.  124  et  seq.  i  Ibid.,  p.  237  et  seq. 


232  MARYLAND   AS    A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

question  was  equal  to  or  exceeded  X20  sterling  or  two 
thousand  pounds  of  tobacco.1 

Finally,  in  1658  and  1661,  the  organization  of  the  county 
court  assumed  its  final  form.  The  commander  was 
dropped,  and  in  his  stead  four  or  more  of  the  commis- 
sioners, or  justices,  were  named  as  justices  of  the  quorum ; 
and  no  court  could  be  held  unless  at  least  four  of  the  jus- 
tices were  present,  of  whom  a  justice  of  the  quorum  was 
to  be  one.  Each  justice  was  required  to  take  a  prescribed 
oath.  A  clerk  was  appointed.  Provision  was  made  for 
a  grand  jury  to  make  inquest.  While  jurisdiction  in 
criminal  cases  was  unchanged,  in  civil  matters  it  was  -at 
this  time  limited  to  cases  in  which  the  value  did  not  ex- 
ceed three  thousand  pounds  of  tobacco.  Thereafter  there 
was  little  change  with  respect  to  the  county  courts  except 
in  the  extent  of  their  jurisdiction.2 

After  the  erection  of  counties,  the  hundred  court  seems 
to  have  disappeared.  But  in  1678  an  act  of  assembly, 
which  provided  for  the  recovery  of  any  debt  not  exceeding 
fifteen  hundred  pounds  of  tobacco  before  a  single  justice 
of  the  provincial  court  or  before  any  two  justices  of  a 
county  court,  was  the  first  action  taken  toward  providing 
in  each  county  a  court  for  the  recogfliy  °f  small  dphls 
before  a  single  justice. 

Before  1689  three  other  courts  of  justice  had  been  more 
or  less  distinctly  organized,  but  the  chief  administrator  in 
each  of  them  was  always  some  justice  of  the  provincial 
court.  They  were  the  chancery  court,  the  admiralty 
court,  and  the  probate  court.  Until  1661  the  governor 
was  chancellor.  But  from  that  year  until  1689  Philip 
Calvert,  an  uncle  of  the  governor  and  always  a  justice 
of  the  provincial  court,  held  that  office.     Until  1684  the 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1636  to  1667,  p.  257,  258. 

2  Ibid.,  pp.  348,  422,  423,  424. 


THE    ADMINISTRATION    OF   JUSTICE  233 

governor,  with  or  without  the  assistance  of  his  associates 
in  the  provincial  court,  was  judge  of  the  admiralty  court. 
But  in  that  year  that  court  was  given  a  constitution 
separate  from  that  of  the  provincial  court,  although 
one  of  the  justices  of  the  provincial  court  was  appointed 
judge  of  the  admiralty  court.  As  early  as  1638-39 
an  act  of  assembly  made  the  secretary  judge  of  probate, 
and  authorized  him  to  grant  letters  of  administration. 
As  such  he  remained  until  1673,  when  that  office  was 
given  to  the  chancellor,  and  provision  was  made  for  an 
appeal  from  his  decisions  in  probate  cases  to  the  lord 
proprietor,  to  the  governor,  or  to  such  other  persons  as 
the  lord  proprietor  or  the  governor  should  appoint  for  that 
purpose. 

Before  1689,  therefore,  each  of  the  two  houses  of 
Assembly  had  some  distinctly  judicial  functions.  But 
ordinarily  the  provincial  court  was  the  supreme  court 
of  the  province.  Its  justices  were  appointed  not  during 
good  behavior,  but  during  the  pleasure  of  the  lord  pro- 
prietor. Moreover,  those  justices  were  the  governor  and 
council  as  well  as  the  upper  house  of  the  legislative 
Assembly.  Very  closely  connected  with  that  supreme 
court  were  the  chancery  court,  the  admiralty  court,  and 
the  probate  court.  The  only  inferior  courts  of  much 
importance  were  the  several  county  courts,  the  organi- 
zation, jurisdiction,  and  appointment  of  justices  for 
which  were  determined  almost  solely  by  the  justices  of 
the  provincial  court.  During  the  earliest  years  of  the 
colony  there  was  considerable  legislation  relating  to  the 
courts  of  justice ;  but  from  1647,  especially  from  1661 
until  the  Revolution  of  1689,  it  was  a  growing  tendency 
of  the  lord  proprietor  or  the  governor  to  prevent  the 
interference  of  the  lower  house  and  to  make  the  system 
for  the  administration  of  justice  more  and  more  strongly 


234         MARYLAND    AS    A    PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

centralized.  All  was  to  be  kept  as  dependent  as  possible 
on  the  lord  proprietor  as  the  fountain  head. 

But  with  the  establishment  of  the  royal  government 
decentralization  began.  The  governor  and  council,  in- 
stead of  the  upper  house,  was  at  once  constituted  as  the 
court  of  appeals.  Although  members  of  the  council  were 
still  allowed  to  be  justices  of  the  provincial  court,  the  one 
body  grew  more  and  more  distinct  from  the  other.  After 
1692  the  governor  was  never  the  chief  justice  of  the  pro- 
vincial court.  In  1709,  and  again  in  1720,  the  lower  house 
presented  it  as  a  grievance  that  the  members  of  the  council 
were  also  justices  of  the  provincial  court.1  The  consequence 
was  the  establishment  of  a  precedent  that  a  justice  who 
had  sat  in  the  provincial  court  during  the  trial  of  any 
case  should  not  sit  with  the  governor  and  council  when 
they  heard  the  same  case  on  appeal.2  Moreover,  it  is 
probable  that  it  was  this  very  precedent  that  tended 
to  cause  a  decreasing  number  of  the  council  to  be  ap- 
pointed justices  of  the  provincial  court.  After  1730  it 
was  seldom  that  more  than  two  or  three  of  the  council 
were  justices  of  the  provincial  court,  and  when,  in  1760, 
there  were  two,  the  attorney  general  himself  recommended 
that  they  should  be  replaced  by  others.  He  did  so  because 
he  felt  that  by  their  sitting  in  the  provincial  court  the 
court  of  appeals  had  on  some  occasions  been  deprived 
of  their  judgment  when  much  needed  there.3 

Again,  in  1692,  the  governor,  with  the  approval  of  the 
council,  separated  the  office  of  chancellor  from  that  of 
his  own ;  and  although  royal  instructions,  received  in 
1699,  directed  that  those  offices  should  be  reunited,  the 
lower  house  had  little  difficulty  in  having  the  governor 
place  some  restrictions  upon  himself  in  that  office.     Thus, 

1  L.  H.  J.,  October  21,  1720.  *  u.  H.  J.,  October  26,  1720. 

8  Portfolio  4,  No.  53,  Bordley  to  Sharpe. 


THE   ADMINISTRATION    OF   JUSTICE  235 

in  that  same  year,  1699,  he  agreed  that  two  of  the  council 
should  assist  him  in  the  court  of  chancery  on  the  first  hear- 
ing, and  that  in  case  a  rehearing  was  asked  for  he  would 
have  at  least  five  of  the  council  sit  with  him.1  In  1718 
the  governor  and  council,  yielding  to  the  request  of  the 
lower  house,  consented  to  the  passage  of  an  act  of 
assembly  whereby,  —  although  the  governor  as  chancellor 
might  sit  alone  during  the  first  hearing,  —  upon  a  rehear- 
ing, the  council  was  to  sit  with  him.  Finally,  by  the  middle 
of  the  century,  the  chancellor  had  ceased  to  sit  in  the  court 
of  appeals  when  that  court  was  hearing  a  chancery  case. 

It  appears  then  that,  while  under  the  first  period  of  pro- 
prietary government  the  centralization  of  the  system  of 
administration  of  justice  was  increased,  from  the  over- 
throw of  that  government  in  1689  the  most  extreme 
features  of  that  centralization  were  gradually  abandoned 
in  response  to  the  needs  of  administration,  until  the  court 
of  appeals,  the  chancery  court,  and  the  provincial  court 
became  quite  distinct  from  each  other. 

Furthermore,  from  the  beginning  of  the  royal  govern- 
ment the  lower  house  quite  successfully  contended  that 
no  courts  or  offices  involving  the  imposition  of  new  fees 
could  be  erected  without  its  consent.  Although  the 
lower  house,  in  1692,  expressed  a  desire  for  circuit  courts, 
yet  when  the  board  of  trade  recommended  that  justices 
of  the  provincial  court  should  hold  circuit  courts  in  the 
several  counties,  and  When  the  governor  and  council,  in 
support  of  that  recommendation,  endeavored  to  secure  a 
legislative  provision  for  the  same,  the  lower  house  does 
not  seem  to  have  favored  the  plan.  Still,  that  house  kept 
referring  the  matter  to  the  next  Assembly — perhaps  that 
the  desire  of  the  people  might  be  ascertained  —  until  in 
1701    it   was    totally    rejected.2      The    board    of    trade, 

1  U.  H.  J.,  July,  1699.  2  L.  H.  J.,  May  14,  1701. 


236  MARYLAND    AS    A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

however,  would  not  yet  allow  its  recommendation  to  be 
dropped.  In  1707  it  offered  some  modification  of  its 
former  plan,  and  then  prevailed  upon  the  crown  to  issue 
an  instruction  that  its  revised  plan  should  be  executed.1 
Whereupon,  in  accordance  with  that  plan,  the  governor 
and  council  proposed  that  the  justices  of  the  provincial 
court  should  be  reduced  to  four,  that  the  sessions  of  the 
provincial  court  at  Annapolis  should  be  reduced  from 
six  to  four  a  year,  that  those  four  justices  should  hold 
circuit  courts  in  the  several  counties  twice  a  year,  and 
that  the  Assembly  should  settle  upon  each  of  them  an 
annual  salary  of  at  least  X100  per  annum,  besides  their 
travelling  expenses.  Then  the  governor,  in  a  speech  at 
the  opening  of  a  session,  strongly  urged  that  legislative 
provision  should  be  made  for  the  execution  of  the  pro- 
posed plan,  and  intimated  that  upon  the  failure  of  the 
Assembly  to  make  such  provision,  the  crown  would  send 
over  justices  from  England.  But  the  lower  house  still 
held  out.  However,  in  1708,  it  requested  that  an  account 
of  the  proposed  expense  should  be  laid  before  it.  In 
response  to  that  request  the  governor  showed  that,  while 
the  annual  cost  to  the  country  by  the  old  plan  had  been 
83,908  pounds  of  tobacco,  by  the  proposed  plan  it  would 
be  100,000  pounds ;  but  he  promised  that  so  long  as  he 
should  remain  in  the  country  he  would  give  each  year 
5000  pounds  of  tobacco  out  of  his  fees  as  chancellor 
toward  making  up  the  difference'.2  Yet  such  an  offer 
did  not  avail,  for  the  lower  house  was  at  that  time 
too  strongly  bent  on  extending  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
county  courts ;  and  after  the  governor  and  council  had 
established  the  circuits  without  the  consent  of  the  lower- 
house,  that  body  complained  that  they  were  not  conven- 

i  U.  H.  J.,  March  29  and  31,  1707. 
2  L.  H.  J.,  March  26  to  April  11,  1707. 


THE  ADMINISTRATION   OF  JUSTICE  237 

ient  to  the  country,  that  justice  was  not  so  well  adminis- 
tered as  it  had  been,  and  that  they  had  been  imposed 
upon  the  people  without  their  consent.  Therefore,  con- 
tending that  the  justices  should  be  paid  by  those  who  had 
set  them  at  work,  the  lower  house  refused  to  make  any 
allowance  in  the  journal  of  accounts  to  pay  them  for 
their  services.1  Hence  the  circuit  courts  were  abandoned 
until  the  year  1723.^.  Long  before  that  time,  however, 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  county  courts  had  been  extended, 
while  that  of  the  provincial  court  had  been  restricted.  All 
parties  had  therefore  come  to  feel  that,  as  the  business  of 
the  latter  court  was  increasing,  it  was  highly  desirable  that 
four  of  its  justices  —  two  for  each  shore  —  should  be  chosen 
to  hold  circuits  in  the  several  counties.  Accordingly,  an 
act  for  that  purpose  was  passed,  but  it  provided  that  the 
county  courts  should  not  thereby  be  divested  of  any  of 
their  former  jurisdiction. 

With  respect  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  several  courts, 
the  chief  contention  arose  over  the  dividing  line  between 
that  of  the  provincial  court  and  that  of  the  several  county 
courts.  There  were  three  reasons  why  the  lower  house 
was  so  constantly  striving  for  an  extension  of  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  the  county  courts  :  first,  the  general  desire  of  the 
people  to  extend  their  control  in  local  matters  ;  second, 
the  desire  of  the  people  to  lessen  the  inconvenience  and 
expense  of  obtaining  justice  ;  third,  by  extending  that 
jurisdiction  the  general  control  of  the  lower  house  in  the 
department  of  justice  would  be  increased,  since  so  many 
of  its  members  were  justices  in  some  county  court. 

As  already  stated,  when  the  organization  of  the  county 
courts  had  reached  its  final  form  in  the  year  1661,  their 
jurisdiction  was  limited  to  criminal  cases  not  extending 
to  life  or  member  and  to  civil  cases  in  which  the  value  did 

iL.  H.  J.,  October  26,  1710. 


238         MARYLAND    AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

not  exceed  three  thousand  pounds  of  tobacco.  In  the 
year  1678,  at  the  request  of  the  lower  house,  they  were 
given  jurisdiction  over  all  cases  of  debt.  But  only  two 
years  later  their  jurisdiction  in  most  civil  cases  was 
reduced  to  those  in  which  the  value  involved  did  not 
exceed  sixteen  hundred  pounds  of  tobacco.  Although 
their  jurisdiction  in  criminal  matters  always  remained 
limited  to  cases  not  extending  to  life  or  member,  —  negro 
slaves  excepted,  —  in  1681  theft  of  what  did  not  exceed 
one  thousand  pounds  of  tobacco  in  value  was  made  pun- 
ishable by  whipping  or  the  pillory,  instead  of  by  the  loss 
of  members,  and  thereby  such  an  offence  was  brought 
within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  county  courts. 

Two  years  after  the  establishment  of  the  royal  govern- 
ment the  jurisdiction  of  those  courts  in  civil  cases  was  ex- 
tended to  all  such  as  did  not  exceed  in  value  ten  thousand 
pounds  of  tobacco  or  £50  sterling.  In  1697,  and  again  in 
1706,  requests  from  the  lower  house  for  a  still  further 
extension  of  that  jurisdiction  were  refused.1  But  by  1708 
the  distress  of  the  poorer  classes  had  become  alarming  ; 
and,  accordingly,  in  that  year,  the  lower  house  stated  that 
the  limited  jurisdiction  of  the  county  courts  was  the  cause 
of  the  many  actions  being  brought  in  the  provincial  court 
which  might  have  been  heard  and  determined  in  the 
county  courts  much  sooner  and  for  one-half  the  cost.  In 
view  of  such  alleged  conditions,  the  governor  was  asked  to 
issue  new  commissions  to  the  county  courts  in  order  to 
give  them  power  to  try  all  actions  except  those  for  deter- 
mining title  to  land,  and  except  criminal  cases  involving 
life  or  member;  2  and  only  a  little  later  commissions  were 
issued  in  which  the  jurisdiction  was  extended  to  all  civil 
cases  in  which  the  value  involved  did  not  exceed  thirty 
thousand  pounds  of  tobacco  or  <£100  sterling. 

i  L.  H.  J.,  June  1,  1697  and  April  19,  1706. 
2  Ibid.,  December  8,  1708. 


THE   ADMINISTRATION   OF   JUSTICE  239 

But  although  the  possible  jurisdiction  of  the  county 
courts  was  so  much  enlarged,  there  was  as  yet  no  restric- 
tion of  that  of  the  provincial  court.  The  consequence  was 
that  the  very  next  year,  1709,  the  lower  house  presented 
it  as  a  grievance  of  the  people  that  almost  all  actions  were 
tried  in  the  provincial  court,  that  thereby  it  frequently 
happened  that  the  cost  of  trying  a  small  action  was  greater 
than  the  value  in  dispute,  and  that  thereby  the  plaintiff 
often  lost  both  his  debt  and  costs,  while  the  defendant 
suffered  both  long  imprisonment  and  the  ruin  of  his  estate.1 
But  the  province  was  at  this  time  without  a  governor, 
the  authority  of  the  president  of  the  council  was  limited, 
and  so,  although  the  upper  house  conceded  that  the  griev- 
ance was  a  real  one,  it  did  no  more  at  this  time  than  to 
recommend  that  application  for  its  redress  should  be  made 
to  the  next  governor.  The  next  governor,  however,  did 
not  come  until  five  years  later,  while  during  the  interval 
the  condition  of  the  poor  seems  to  have  become  more 
alarming.  The  consequence  was  that  in  1710,  without 
waiting  longer  for  a  new  governor,  the  lower  house  asked 
for  an  act  to  limit  the  jurisdiction  of  the  provincial 
court  in  original  cases  to  those  where  the  debt  or  dam- 
age was  equal  to  or  exceeded  .£30  sterling  or  seventy- 
five  hundred  pounds  of  tobacco.  This  time  even  the 
upper  house  felt  the  grievance  to  be  so  heavy  that  it  was 
causing  many  people  to  leave  the  province  ;  but  it  objected 
to  the  bill  on  the  ground  that  it  would  trench  too  much 
upon  the  royal  prerogative.  Such  an  object  was  incon- 
clusive to  the  lower  house,  and  it  at  once  resolved  that 
it  would  proceed  to  no  other  business  until  the  bill  had 
been  passed.2  This  resolution  had  the  desired  effect, 
for   when   the  upper    house    had    again    considered  the 

i  L.  H.  J.,  November  2,  1709. 

2  Ibid.,  October  27  to  November  1, 1710. 


240  MARYLAND   AS   A    PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

matter,  that  body,  in  its  turn,  unanimously  resolved  that, 
if  the  bill  were  not  enacted  into  a  law,  the  peace  of  the 
province  might  be  greatly  imperilled.  It,  however, 
amended  the  provisions  of  the  bill  so  as  to  admit  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  provincial  court  in  original  cases 
where  the  debt  or  damage  was  not  less  than  £20  ster- 
ling or  five  thousand  pounds  of  tobacco.  The  lower 
house  reluctantly  accepted  the  amendment,  and  the  bill 
became  a  law.1 

In  1714  merchants  and  lawyers,  in  numerous  peti- 
tions against  the  act,  complained  of  the  great  partiality 
shown  in  the  county  courts  by  the  debtors'  relatives  and 
friends,  also  that  attorneys  practising  in  those  courts  could 
not  be  depended  upon,  and  that  judgments  there  were 
generally  erroneous.  They  also  stated  that  the  act  dis- 
couraged well-educated  and  competent  attorneys  from 
practising  in  the  provincial  court,  and  that  merchants 
having  money  to  collect  had  to  employ  twelve  agents  — 
one  for  each  county  —  instead  of  only  one  as  before. 
While  as  to  people  leaving  the  province,  the  secretary  — 
the  fees  of  whose  office  the  act  had  diminished  —  claimed 
that  it  was  not  the  fees  or  costs  of  suits  that  obliged  them 
to  do  so,  but  their  debts.2  The  board  of  trade,  however, 
offered  no  objections  to  the  act,  and  it  was  continued  for 
fifty-nine  years,  when  it  was  displaced  by  one  which  fur- 
ther extended  the  jurisdiction  of  the  county  courts.  From 
the  year  1739  the  lower  house  at  nearly  every  session  passed 
a  bill  for  such  further  extension  and,  finally,  in  the  year 
1773,  the  bill  became  a  law  and  gave  the  county  courts 
jurisdiction  concurrent  with  that  of  the  provincial  court 
in  all  criminal  cases,  and  exclusive  jurisdiction  in  all  civil 
cases  in  which  they  had  formerly  had  only  concurrent 

i  IT.  H.  J.,  November  2  and  3,  1710. 
a  Ibid.,  June  29,  1714. 


THE   ADMINISTRATION   OF   JUSTICE  241 

jurisdiction  ;  that  is,  exclusive  jurisdiction  in  all  cases  in 
which  the  value  involved  did  not  exceed  £100  sterling  or 
thirty  thousand  pounds  of  tobacco.1 

The  act  of  assembly  passed  in  the  year  1692  for  the 
recovery  of  small  debts  was  chiefly  for  the  purpose  of  re- 
moving such  cases  from  the  jurisdiction  of  the  provincial 
court.  It  provided  for  the  recovery  of  debts,  not  exceed- 
ing the  value  of  fifteen  hundred  pounds  of  tobacco,  before 
a  single  justice  of  the  provincial  court  or  before  any  two 
justices  of  a  county  court.  When  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
county  courts  had  been  extended  in  civil  cases,  and  that  of 
the  provincial  court  restricted,  two  acts  of  assembly  of 
the  year  1715  made  special  provision  for  trying  cases 
of  debt.  One  of  them  directed  that  where  the  debt  did 
not  exceed  four  hundred  pounds  of  tobacco  or  33s.  4c?. 
sterling  it  should  be  recoverable  before  a  single  justice  of 
the  peace.  The  other  directed  that  where  the  debt  was 
more  than  four  hundred  but  not  more  than  one  thousand 
pounds  of  tobacco,  or  more  than  33s.  4c?.  sterling  but  not. 
more  than  £50  sterling,  it  should  be  recoverable  in  the 
county  courts.  The  same  act  also  directed  that  if  a  plain- 
tiff brought  suit  in  the  county  court  for  the  recovery  of  a 
debt  that  was  less  than  four  hundred  pounds  of  tobacco  or 
less  than  33s.  4d.  sterling,  he  should  be  non-suited  ;  and, 
furthermore,  that  if  a  plaintiff  brought  suit  in  the  provin- 
cial court  for  the  recovery  of  a  debt  that  was  less  than 
fifteen  hundred  pounds  of  tobacco  or  less  than  £6  5s. 
sterling,  he,  too,  should  be  non-suited.  Finally,  in  the 
year  1732,  the  amount  of  the  debt  recoverable  before  a 
single  justice  was  increased  to  six  hundred  pounds  of 
tobacco  or  50s.  currency. 

1  In  the  year  1763  the  county  courts  were  given  jurisdiction  concurrent 
with  that  of  the  court  of  chancery  in  all  cases  in  which  the  value  involved 
did  not  exceed  five  thousand  pounds  of  tobacco  or  £20  sterling. 

R 


242         MARYLAND   AS    A   PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

In  1715  the  chancery  court  was,  by  act  of  assembly, 
excluded  from  jurisdiction  in  cases  in  which  the  original 
debt  or  damage  did  not  amount  to  1201  pounds  of  tobacco 
or  £5  Id.  sterling ;  and  in  1763  the  county  courts  were 
given  jurisdiction  concurrent  with  that  of  the  chancery 
court  in  all  cases  in  which  the  value  involved  did  not 
exceed  five  thousand  pounds  of  tobacco  or  £20  sterling. 
In  1748  the  committee  on  laws  was  ordered  to  make 
inquiry  as  to  whether  the  people  of  Maryland  were  not 
of  right  entitled  to  have  writs  of  replevin  issue  out  of 
the  county  courts.  That  committee  reported  that  by  the 
custom  in  England  the  people  of  Maryland  were  so  enti- 
tled, and  for  the  next  quarter  of  a  century  the  lower 
house,  at  nearly  every  session,  passed  a  bill  for  authorizing 
the  county  courts  to  issue  those  writs.1  In  1769  the  great 
objection  of  the  other  branches  of  the  legislature  to  that 
bill  appeared  when  the  upper  house  so  amended  it  that  the 
fees  of  the  chancellor  should  not  be  diminished  in  case  the 
bill  became  a  law  ;  and  when  the  lower  house  pointed  out 
that  by  the  laws  of  England  no  such  fee  was  reserved  to 
the  chancellor  as  the  price  of  the  ease  and  convenience  of 
the  subject,  the  upper  house  replied  that  in  England  the 
support  of  the  chancellor  was  not  entirely  dependent  upon 
fees  as  was  the  case  in  Maryland.2  How  could  such  a 
reply  have  given  any  satisfaction  when  in  Maryland  the 
chancellor  was  the  governor  and  from  that  office  was 
receiving  an  annual  income  of  £1400  collected  by  a  law 
which  the  lower  house  was  then  contending  was  not  in 
force?  It  is  not  strange,  therefore,  that  in  1773,  during 
the  great  controversy  over  fees,  the  opposition  to  the 
replevin  bill  gave  way.  And  so  another  long  standing 
contest  ended  in  the  triumph  of  the  representative  house. 

»  L.  H.  J.,  May  26  and  June  10,  1748. 
2  U.  H.  J.,  December  13  and  18,  1769. 


THE   ADMINISTRATION    OF   JUSTICE  243 

A  similar  contest  arose  with  respect  to  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  deputy  commissaries  and  the  payment  of  fees  for 
services  performed  by  them.  As  early  as  the  year  1681 
the  judge  of  probate,  or  commissary  general  as  he  was 
usually  called,  was  authorized  by  the  lord  proprietor  to 
appoint  a  deputy  in  each  county ;  yet  at  the  time  of  the 
Revolution  of  1689  one  of  the  charges  against  the  pro- 
prietary government  was  that  great  trouble  and  expense 
was  imposed  upon  the  people  in  the  remote  parts  of  the 
province  by  being  obliged  to  come  to  the  central  office  for 
the  probate  of  wills  and  the  granting  of  letters  of  admin- 
istration. An  act  of  assembly  of  1692  did  little  more 
than  to  direct  that  the  laws  of  the  mother  country  relat- 
ing to  this  branch  of  justice  should  be  applied  in  Mary- 
land. In  the  year  1715  an  act  of  assembly  directed  that 
the  deputy  commissary  in  each  county  should  prove  wills 
and  grant  letters  of  administration  in  any  case  where  there 
was  no  dispute.  But  any  matter  in  dispute  was  to  be 
decided  by  the  commissary  general  alone,  and  in  such 
cases  the  deputy  commissary  was  not  to  proceed  until  he 
had  received  directions  from  his  superior.  Again,  the 
deputy  commissary  was,  by  this  act,  to  pass  accounts 
relating  to  the  estates  of  deceased  persons,  in  which  the 
value  involved  did  not  exceed  <£50  sterling,  and  about 
which  there  was  no  controversy.1  In  practice  the  com- 
missary general  did  not  pass  many  of  the  larger  accounts, 
but  issued  a  special  commission  to  the  deputy  whenever 
the  value  exceeded  £50  sterling.  An  objection  to  this 
was  that  when  accounts  were  thus  passed  a  double  fee 
was  charged,  one-half  of  which  went  to  the  commissary 
general  and  the  other  half  to  the  deputy.  The  conse- 
quence was  that  by  1729  the  practice  was  giving  general 
dissatisfaction.     In  that  year  the  lower  house  asked  that 

1  In  1763  this  limit  was  extended  to  £150  currency. 


244         MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

the  deputy  commissaries  should  serve  during  good  be- 
havior, and  that  their  jurisdiction  over  the  passing  of 
accounts  should  be  greatly  enlarged.1  The  latter  request 
was  supported  on  the  ground  that  the  restraint  as  imposed 
by  the  act  of  1715  was  of  no  advantage  to  any  one  except 
the  commissary  general,  whose  interest,  it  was  held,  ought 
not  to  stand  in  competition  with  that  of  the  whole  coun- 
try. The  upper  house,  however,  stood  firm.  The  question 
was  not  one  of  fees  merely.  It  was  one  of  centralization 
vs.  decentralization.  After  the  act  of  1747  for  the 
inspection  of  tobacco  and  the  regulation  of  officers'  fees 
had  been  passed,  the  lower  house  contended  that  the  oath 
prescribed  therein  forbade  the  charge  of  the  double  fee. 
But  the  oath  was  not  taken.  When  the  officers  for  whom 
the  lower  house  claimed  that  the  oath  was  intended  had  re- 
fused to  take  it,  the  governor  was  asked  to  enforce  that 
part  of  the  law.  But  to  this  request  the  governor  replied 
that  the  law  was  equivocal  with  regard  to  the  oath,  that 
the  officers  concerned  were  not  appointed  by  him,  and  that 
the  act  imposed  no  penalty  for  not  taking  the  oath.  The 
lower  house,  by  a  vote  of  34  to  15,  then  resolved  to  amend 
the  law  so  as  effectually  to  prevent  the  commissary  gen- 
eral from  receiving  any  fee  when  the  service  was  per- 
formed by  his  deputy.  But  it  was  of  no  avail.  The 
matter  continued  as  a  subject  of  bitter  contention  as  long 
as  the  proprietary  government  endured.  The  commissary 
general,  supported  by  the  upper  house,  took  the  view  that 
as  the  deputy  commissaries  were  appointed  for  the  con- 
venience of  the  people,  it  was  fair  to  demand  double  fees 
when  the  service  was  performed  by  one  of  the  deputies, 
while  the  lower  house  regarded  it  as  absurd  that  a  double 
fee  should  be  paid  for  a  single  service. 

It  does  not  appear  that  there  was  any  restriction  on 

i  L.  H.  J.,  July  26  and  29,  1729. 


THE   ADMINISTRATION   OF   JUSTICE  245' 

appeals  from  the  county  courts  to  the  provincial  court 
until  1676,  when  an  act  of  assembly  was  passed  to  insure 
payment  of  the  cost  of  an  appeal  by  requiring  that  no 
appeal  should  be  allowed  before  the  party  applying  there- 
fore had  given  bond  for  double  the  amount  adjudged  to 
be  recovered  from  him  by  the  first  judgment.  In  1692  a 
further  step  was  taken  when  an  act  forbade  an  appeal  to 
be  made  on  any  terms  whatever  from  a  county  court  to 
the  provincial  court  if  the  amount  of  the  judgment  in  the 
county  court  did  not  equal  or  exceed  twelve  hundred 
pounds  of  tobacco  or  £6  sterling. 

At  the  time  the  court  of  appeals  was  made  distinct 
from  the  provincial  court,  the  crown  directed  that  an 
appeal  should  be  allowed  to  the  court  of  appeals  only  when 
the  value  in  dispute  exceeded  <£100  sterling,  and  then 
only  after  the  proper  security  had  been  given.  However, 
in  1699,  in  response  to  the  desire  of  the  lower  house,  the 
jurisdiction  of  that  court  was  extended  to  all  cases  in 
which  the  value  exceeded  £50  sterling  or  ten  thousand 
pounds  of  tobacco. 

By  the  commission  of  the  first  royal  governor,  appeal 
might  be  permitted  to  the  king  in  council  provided  the 
value  in  dispute  exceeded  £300  sterling,  that  the  ap- 
peal was  made  within  fourteen  days  after  the  last  sen- 
tence given,  and  that  security  was  given  to  answer  the 
cost  of  the  appeal,  and  provided  execution  was  not  sus- 
pended by  reason  of  the  appeal.  And  it  does  not  appear 
that  those  provisions  for  such  an  appeal  were  changed 
before  the  Revolution  of  1776. 

The  time  at  which  the  county  courts  should  sit  was 
fixed  by  act  of  assembly.  In  the  seventeenth  century 
they  usually  sat  six  times  a  year.  But  for  the  greater 
part  of  the  eighteenth  they  sat  but  four  times  a  year,  — 
in  March,   June,  August,   and   November.       Finally,   in 


246         MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

1770,  the  June  session  was  abolished.  The  commissary 
general  was  required  to  hold  court  once  in  two  months, 
or  oftener,  if  necessary.  The  sessions  of  the  provincial 
court,  the  chancery  court,  and  the  court  of  appeals 
were  less  regular,  but  they  usually  sat  several  times  a 
year. 

In  both  the  provincial  court  and  the  county  courts 
there  was  a  chief  justice  and  at  least  four  or  five  asso- 
ciate justices  who  were  of  the  quorum.  The  presence 
of  at  least  one  of  the  quorum  and  of  one  other  jus- 
tice was  required  for  a  session  of  the  provincial  court. 
While  for  a  session  of  a  county  court  the  presence  of  at 
least  one  of  the  quorum  and  of  two  other  justices  was 
required. 

To  both  the  provincial  court  and  the  county  courts 
were  issued  the  special  commissions  of  oyer  and  terminer 
and  of  jail  delivery.  The  sheriff  of  each  court  sum- 
moned jurors  and  witnesses  and  executed  all  the  sen- 
tences of  the  court.  He  was  given  the  power  of  the 
county  ;  that  is,  in  case  of  resistance  he  could,  if  nec- 
essary, summon  any  person  or  persons  to  his  assistance. 
As  soon  as  a  session  of  court  was  opened,  the  sheriff  made 
return  of  a  panel  of  grand  jurors  who  were  at  once 
sworn  by  the  court  and  then  sent  out  to  make  inquest. 
When  the  inquest  had  been  completed,  the  court  was  pre- 
sented with  the  grand  jury's  bill  of  indictment.  Both  in 
civil  and  criminal  cases  the  trial  might  be  by  the  court 
alone,  or  it  might  be  tried  before  a  jury.  If  both  parties 
agreed  to  a  jury  trial,  then  the  cost  of  the  jury  became  a 
part  of  the  costs  of  the  suit.  If  both  parties  did  not 
agree  to  a  jury  trial,  then  the  one  that  demanded  it  had 
to  pay  the  cost  of  it.  However,  in  criminal  cases  ex- 
tending to  life  or  member  the  defendant  might  demand 
a  trial  by  jury  without  being  compelled  to  give  security 


THE   ADMINISTRATION    OF   JUSTICE  247 

for  the  cost.1  In  case  the  vote  of  the  justices  was  equal, 
the  casting  vote  of  the  chief  justice  was  decisive. 

During  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  there 
were  usually  ten  justices  of  the  provincial  court,  but 
from  1760  there  were  only  nine.  In  that  year,  also,  the 
attorney  general  recommended  that  they  be  reduced  to 
five.  In  the  case  of  the  county  courts,  previous  to 
1730,  there  were  seldom  more  than  twelve  and  in  some 
cases  only  eight  justices.  But  from  1733  all  the  mem- 
bers of  the  council  were  placed  at  the  head  of  every 
commission  for  a  county  court.  From  1738,  also,  the 
number  of  justices  for  each  county  was  otherwise  increased 
until  by  1773  there  were  sometimes  twenty,  and  even  as 
high  as  twenty-eight,  besides  those  of  the  council. 

Justices  of  the  provincial  court,  as  well  as  justices  of 
each  county  court,  were  commissioned  by  the  governor  in  a 
body.     All  such  commissions  were  renewed  at  irregular 

1  By  a  law  of  1715  each  sheriff  was  required  to  summon  to  the  provin- 
cial court  two  grand  jurors  and  three  petit  jurors,  and  likewise  to  sum- 
mon to  the  court  of  his  county  a  "competent  and  sufficient  number"  of 
such  jurors.  A  person  summoned  either  as  a  juror  or  as  a  witness,  and 
failing  to  appear,  was  subject  to  a  fine  of  one  thousand  pounds  of  tobacco 
if  the  summons  was  to  the  provincial  court,  and  five  hundred  pounds  if  to 
a  county  court.  By  the  same  law,  a  grand  jury  attending  the  provincial 
court  was  paid  three  thousand  pounds  of  tobacco,  while  one  attending  a 
county  court  was  paid  five  hundred  pounds  ;  a  witness  in  the  provincial 
court  was  paid  forty  pounds  of  tobacco  a  day,  while  a  witness  in  the 
county  court  was  paid  thirty  pounds  a  day.  By  a  law  of  1719  every  petit 
jury  —  both  in  the  provincial  and  in  the  county  courts  —  was  paid  one 
hundred  and  twenty  pounds  of  tobacco  over  and  above  fifteen  pounds  of 
tobacco  a  day  to  each  juror  serving  in  a  county  court,  and  thirty  pounds 
a  day  for  each  juror  serving  in  the  provincial  court.  Finally,  by  a  law  of 
1760,  the  maximum  pay  to  a  grand  jury  was  increased  to  six  thousand 
pounds  of  tobacco,  petit  jurors  attending  the  provincial  court  were  paid 
forty-eight  pounds  of  tobacco  a  day,  over  and  above  ninety-six  pounds  to 
every  full  jury  passing  a  verdict,  and  itinerant  charges  of  forty-eight 
pounds  of  tobacco  a  day  were  allowed  every  grand  and  petit  juror  attend- 
ing the  provincial  court. 


248         MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

intervals.  But  it  was  not  unusual  for  those  to  the  county 
courts  to  be  renewed  once  a  year  and  even  oftener,  while 
that  to  the  provincial  court  was  renewed  less  frequently. 
But  usually  the  larger  part  of  the  old  justices  were  re- 
appointed with  each  renewal  of  the  commission;  so  that  it 
was  common  for  the  same  person  to  serve  on  the  bench  for 
many  years.  The  appointment  of  justices  during  pleasure, 
instead  of  during  good  behavior,  gave  rise  to  occasional 
complaint.1  But,  except  in  1729,  when  the  lower  house 
passed  a  bill  for  appointing  deputy  commissaries  during 
good  behavior,  it  was  not  until  the  closing  years  of  the 
proprietary  government  that  the  same  house  ever  passed 
a  bill  for  securing  the  independence  of  justices. 

Previous  to  1689  no  other  legislative  provision  was 
made  for  the  payment  of  county  justices  than  to  allow 
each  county  court  to  levy  either  a  limited  or  an  unlimited 
sum  for  defraying  necessary  expenses  of  the  county. 
How  much  of  the  sum  thus  levied  the  justices  reserved 
for  their  own  pay,  does  not  appear.  Previous  to  1689, 
also,  there  was  no  legislative  provision  for  paying,  as  such, 
the  justices  of  the  provincial  court.  But  the  first  Assem- 
bly under  the  royal  government  passed  an  act  to  allow 
the  justices  of  each  county  court  to  levy  on  their  county 
sufficient  to  provide  themselves  payment  to  the  amount  of 
120  pounds  of  tobacco  for  each  day's  service  in  court. 
The  same  act  also  provided  that  each  justice  of  the  pro- 
vincial court,  who  held  no  other  lucrative  office  under  the 
government,  should  be  allowed  for  his  itinerant  expenses 
and  paid  180  pounds  of  tobacco  for  each  day's  service  in 
that  court.  From  not  later  than  the  year  1715  the  legis- 
lature provided  that  each  justice  of  a  county  court  should 
be  paid  only  eighty  pounds  of  tobacco  for  every  day's  ser- 
vice, while  each  justice  of  the  provincial  court  should  be 

iL.  H.  J.,  May  30,  1739;  Maryland  Gazette,  October  28,  1773. 


THE   ADMINISTRATION    OF   JUSTICE  249 

paid  140  pounds  of  tobacco  for  every  day's  service,  and 
also  receive  an  allowance  for  his  necessary  itinerant 
charges.  In  1728  the  lower  house  voted  that  instead  of 
paying  county  justices  in  the  old  way,  suitors  should  pay 
them  in  fees  for  each  particular  service.1  At  the  same 
time,  also,  the  house  voted  in  favor  of  reducing  the  pay 
of  justices  of  the  provincial  court  to  100  pounds  of 
tobacco  for  a  day's  service.  But  on  this,  as  on  several 
other  occasions,  when  the  lower  house  proposed  a  general 
reduction  of  pay  for  all  public  service,  the  other  house 
failed  to  agree  to  such  propositions.  In  1754,  when  a 
motion  was  made  in  the  lower  house  to  have  the  justices 
of  both  the  provincial  and  the  county  courts  paid  in  fees, 
it  was  voted  down  by  a  large  majority.2 

Circuit  court  justices  were  paid  seven  thousand  pounds 
of  tobacco  for  each  circuit. 

Until  1750  the  members  of  the  council  seem  to  have 
received  the  same  pay  — 150  pounds  of  tobacco  a  day  — 
when  sitting  as  a  court  of  appeals  as  when  sitting  as  an 
upper  house ;  but  from  that  year  the  lower  house  refused 
to  pay  the  council  when  sitting  as  a  court  of  appeals  as 
well  as  when  sitting  as  a  council.3 

The  chancellor,  the  judge  of  probate  and  his  deputies, 
the  sheriffs,  and  the  clerks  were  all  paid  in  fees  charged 
for  each  particular  service,  and  to  what  extent  the  amount 
of  those  fees  was  determined  by  the  Assembly  has  already 
been  shown.4 

Insufficient  pay  of  justices  was  most  felt  in  the  case  of 
those  of  the  provincial  court,  and  especially  in  the  case 
of  the  chief  justice  of  that  body.  As  early  as  1701-02, 
when  Thomas  Smithson  was  both  chief  justice  of  the 
provincial  court  and  speaker  of  the  lower  house,  the  gov- 

1  L.  H.  J.,  October  14,  1728.  2  Ibid.,  May  25,  1754. 

8  Ibid.,  May  30,  1750  ;  June  9,  1752.  4  Supra,  p.  191. 


250         MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

ernor  and  council  stated  that  the  chief  justice  had  fre- 
quently expressed  a  desire  to  resign,  but  that  they  had 
resolved  to  encourage  him  tp  continue  by  allowing  him 
£50  per  annum  out  of  the  fifty  thousand  pounds  of  tobacco, 
which  they  were  empowered  to  levy  for  defraying  the 
small  charges  of  the  province.1  It  was,  therefore,  recom- 
mended to  the  lower  house  that  the  Assembly  give  him  a 
suitable  reward  for  his  services.  Although  that  house 
resolved  itself  into  a  committee  of  the  whole  to  consider 
the  recommendation,  it  resolved  not  to  provide  for  the 
proposed  salary.  For,  while  admitting  that  Smithson  was 
well  qualified  as  a  chief  justice,  the  lower  house  claimed 
that  no  province  had  done  more  than  to  defray  the  charges 
of  any  justice;  and  as  it  held  that  such  salaries  had 
always  been  defrayed  out  of  his  Majesty's  revenue,  it 
resolved  that  it  would  not  be  justified  in  burdening  the 
country  with  the  proposed  salary. 

Nothing  was  again  heard  about  the  matter  until  the 
year  1736.  The  office  of  chief  justice  was  at  that  time 
held  by  Levin  Gale,  one  of  the  four  members  who,  two 
years  before,  had  been  expelled  from  the  lower  house  for 
accepting  office.  But  his  county  of  Somerset  had  again 
returned  him,  and  he  was  second  only  to  Dulany  on  the 
committee  on  laws.  His  vote  on  several  questions  shows 
that  he  was  a  supporter  of  the  government  and  not  of  the 
opposition,  and  it  may  be  that  it  was  a  design  of  the 
opposition  to  win  him  over  to  its  side  when  the  lower 
house  acknowledged  his  merit  and  ability  as  chief  justice, 
and  voted  to  allow  him  £100  in  the  public  levy.2 

But  the  very  next  year  when  the  lower  house  voted  to 
allow  him  only  £50,  on  the  ground  that  the  allowance  of 
the  previous  year  had  been  intended  for  all  his  preceding 
services,  the  upper  house  declared  that  the  sum  was  be- 

1  U.  H.  J. ,  March  20,  1701-02.       2  L.  H.  J.,  April  30  and  May  1,  1736. 


THE   ADMINISTRATION    OF   JUSTICE  251 

neath  the  dignity  of  the  Assembly  to  offer,  and  of  the 
chief  justice  to  accept.  After  several  messages  had  fol- 
lowed, the  lower  house,  holding  that  it  was  their  duty  to 
refrain  from  squandering  the  property  of  their  constitu- 
ents, voted  to  strike  out  the  entire  allowance  from  the 
journal  of  accounts ;  and  although  the  upper  house  would 
not  then  pass  the  journal,  it  does  not  appear  that  any  such 
allowance  was  ever  again  made.1 

The  natural  result  of  the  lack  of  salary  for  either  chief 
justice  or  associate  justices  was  that  the  supreme  court 
of  the  province  became  one  of  the  weakest  points  in  the 
entire  system  of  government.  The  chief  justice  might  be 
rewarded  by  giving  him  a  seat  in  the  council,  and  some 
of  those  lucrative  offices  that  the  councillor  always  en- 
joyed. However,  that  officer  was  not  always  a  councillor ; 
and  the  objection  to  having  many  of  the  council  as  jus- 
tices of  the  provincial  court  has  already  been  noticed.2 
Consequently,  during  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, it  being  so  difficult  to  get  men  of  good  capacity  to 
take  a  seat  in  that  court,  two  or  more  of  those  justices 
were,  at  the  time,  clerks  of  a  county  court. 

But  the  attitude  of  that  body  in  the  year  1759,  during 
the  trial  of  a  case  in  which  the  proprietor's  right  to 
escheated  land  was  at  stake,  had  the  effect  of  causing  that 
court  to  be  made  much  stronger.  For  after  the  trial  was 
over  Stephen  Bordley,  the  attorney  general,  gave  an 
account  of  it,  first,  to  Secretary  Calvert,  and,  later,  to 
Governor  Sharpe.  In  his  account  to  Sharpe  he  objected 
to  three  of  the  justices  because  they  were  county  clerks, 
to  two  of  them  because  they  were  members  of  the  council, 
and  to  two  others  because  they  were  extremely  weak. 
So  there  were  only  two  out  of  nine  against  whom  he 
offered  no  objections.3 

i L.  H.  J.,  May  26,  27,  28,  1737.       2  Supra  p.  234.       8  Portfolio  4 

UiSs!V 


252  MARYLAND   AS    A    PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

Very  soon  the  lord  proprietor,  the  secretary,  the  gov- 
ernor, the  attorney  general,  and  even  the  lower  house 
were  all  interested  in  reforming  the  provincial  court. 
Secretary  Calvert  even  confessed  that  those  justices  ought 
to  hold  no  other  offices,  ought  to  be  appointed  for  life,  and 
removed  only  for  cause,  and  ought  to  be  men  of  stability, 
sound  judgment,  honor,  and  good  erudition.1  In  order  to 
induce  men  of  such  desirable  qualities  to  serve,  he  thought 
the  legislature  ought  to  unite  with  the  lord  proprietor  in 
providing  better  pay.  In  1765  the  lord  proprietor  offered 
to  allow  the  appropriation  of  the  income  from  his  disputed 
right  to  ordinary  licenses  toward  paying  those  justices,  if 
the  Assembly  would  pass  an  act  "  for  the  better  establish- 
ing and  securing  the  independence  of  the  judges,  and  for 
rendering  the  office  worthy  the  acceptance  of  men  of  the 
greatest  integrity  and  ability  in  the  province."2 

It  was  doubtless  in  response  to  such  an  offer  that  three 
years  later  —  after  the  Stamp  Act  controversy  was  over  — 
the  lower  house  appointed  fifteen  of  its  strongest  members 
to  serve  on  a  committee  to  make  an  estimate  of  the  sala- 
ries of  three  judges  of  the  provincial  court,  and  also  to 
consider  ways  and  means  to  pay  them.  In  its  report  that 
committee  recommended  a  salary  to  the  chief  justice  of 
£666  13s.  4t?.,  and  to  two  associate  justices  a  salary  of 
£400  each.  The  report  provided  for  the  payment  of  the 
same  by  the  levy  of  a  tax  of  £800  on  ordinaries,  of  <£80 
on  hawkers  and  pedlers,  of  £480  on  carriage  wheels,  and 
of  £120  on  judgments  rendered.3  The  house  concurred 
in  the  report  of  its  committee  ;  and  a  bill  embodying  its 
recommendations  passed  the  first  reading.  But  the  bill 
was  then  referred  to  the  next  Assembly,  and  the  pressing 

1  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  134. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  195. 

8  L.  H.  J.,  May  30  to  June  1,  1768. 


THE   ADMINISTRATION    OF   JUSTICE  253 

questions  which  by  that  time  had  arisen  seem  to  have  left 
little  time  for  its  further  consideration. 

But  although  that  bill  never  became.a  law,  and  although 
those  justices  continued  to  the  end  without  a  salary,  yet 
the  strong  executive  ability  of  Governor  Sharpe  had  been 
called  into  action.  In  1766  he  issued  a  new  commission 
for  that  court  in  which  five  of  the  former  justices  were 
replaced  by  others.  Of  those  five,  Henry  Hooper,  chief 
justice,  was  a  man  well  advanced  in  years,  who  had  some- 
time before  been  both  a  justice  of  that  court  and  a  speaker 
of  the  lower  house  ;  James  Weems  had  been  chief  justice 
of  Calvert  County ;  Daniel  of  St.  Thomas  Jenifer  later 
became  the  lord  proprietor's  agent  and  receiver  general ; 
and  the  other  two  —  John  Beals  Bordley  and  John  Leeds 
—  were  of  well-recognized  ability.  After  the  new  com- 
mission had  been  issued,  Sharpe  wrote  to  the  lord  proprie- 
tor as  follows  concerning  the  justices  of  that  court : 
"  They  are  all,  in  my  opinion,  gentlemen  of  integrity  and 
well  attached  to  your  Lordship's  government,  and  as  well 
qualified  as  any  I  know  to  administer  justice  unless  some 
gentlemen  of  the  law  could  be  prevailed  upon  to  relin- 
quish their  practice  and  sit  on  the  bench,  which  can  never 
be  expected  while  the  allowance  made  the  provincial  jus- 
tices for  their  attendance  is  little  more  than  sufficient  to 
defray  their  expenses."1 

Little  complaint  was  ever  raised  about  the  want  of  abil- 
ity and  integrity  in  the  justices  of  the  several  county  courts. 
Although  those  justices  received  but  very  small  pay,  yet 
the  greatest  days  in  the  year  —  the  days  of  the  largest 
gatherings  of  the  people  —  were  those  on  which  the  county 
court  sat,  and  the  honor  of  the  occasion  seems  to  have 
been  sufficient  to  induce  many  of  the  ablest  men  of  the 
county  to  accept  appointment   as   justices.     As  already 

1  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  334. 


254         MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

stated,  many  of  the  members  of  the  lower  house  sat  on  the 
bench  in  those  courts.    •        , 

The  most  objectionable  features,  then,  of  the  whole 
judicial  system  were  these,  that  the  justices  of  the  provin- 
cial court  were  so  poorly  paid  ;  that  judges  were  appointed 
only  during  the  pleasure  of  the  lord  proprietor ;  and  that 
under  the  fee  system  in  the  chancery  and  the  probate 
courts,  suitors  too  often  had  to  make  an  expensive  journey 
to  the  city  of  Annapolis,  or  else  pay  double  fees  in  order 
to  have  matters  attended  to  within  the  county. 

It  was  not  until  1662  that  legislative  provision  was 
made  for  a  prison  even  at  St.  Mary's ;  but  before  Gov- 
ernor Charles  Calvert  had  succeeded  his  father  as  lord 
proprietor,  the  General  Assembly  had  directed  the  justices 
of  each  county  to  provide  their  county  with  a  prison,  a 
pillory,  stocks,  a  whipping  post,  and  a  burning  iron. 
Although  there  was  much  uncertainty  as  to  what  penal 
statutes  were  in  force  in  the  province,  nevertheless,  dur- 
ing the  low  industrial  conditions  of  the  first  third  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  there  was  a  frequent  use  of  the  pillory, 
the  stocks,  the  whipping  post,  and  the  burning  iron. 
Even  in  the  more  prosperous  times  that  followed  many  a 
poor  woman  who  had  borne  a  bastard  child  and  could  not 
pay  the  fine  of  thirty  shillings  was  tied  to  the  whipping 
post,  and  given  ten  or  twelve  lashes  on  her  bare  back ; *  a 
man  found  guilty  of  blasphemy  had  his  tongue  bored 
through;  those  found  guilty  of  manslaughter,  of  felony, 
and,  in  some  cases  of  theft,  were  burned  in  the  hand ;  a 
negro  woman  found  guilty  of  perjury  had  both  her  ears 
cut  off ;  one  who  had  stolen  a  grindstone  was  stood  in  the 
pillory,  and  afterward  tied  to  the  whipping  post  and  given 
thirty  lashes ;    and  a  shoplifter  was  twice  whipped   and 

1  In  the  year  1749  corporal  punishment  for  this  offence  was  abolished. 


THE   ADMINISTRATION   OF   JUSTICE  255 

twice  stood  in  the  pillory.  Such  are  the  examples  of 
punishment  actually  inflicted  after  the  year  1745. 

The  prisons  also  had  many  inmates,  and  their  condition, 
although  perhaps  no  worse  than  in  the  other  colonies,  is 
somewhat  shocking  to  the  more  humane  sentiments  of  the 
closing  years  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Although  the 
lord  proprietor,  while  visiting  the  province  in  1732  and 
1733,  had  but  little  to  say  to  the  Assembly,  he  did  mention 
to  that  body  his  concern  about  the  bad  state  of  the  prisons.1 
That  there  was  cause  for  such  concern  is  made  quite  clear 
by  the  report  of  a  committee  of  the  lower  house  submitted 
three  years  later,  with  respect  to  the  prison  at  Annapolis. 
Thus,  in  part,  the  report  reads  :  "  It  is  a  very  inconven- 
ient building,  there  being  but  two  rooms  in  it,  one  on  the 
ground  floor  and  the  other  above.  So  there  are  no  sepa- 
rate apartments  for  men  and  women.  Such  debtors  as 
have  the  misfortune  to  be  in  prison,  and  who  "are  kept 
generally  in  the  upper  room,  are  almost  perished  with  cold 
in  the  winter,  and  in  danger  of  being  destroyed  by  stench 
which  in  the  summer  time  comes  from  the  lower  room 
where  the  criminals  are  confined. 

u  Your  committee  have  likewise  been  informed  that  sev- 
eral unfortunate  persons  who  have  been  confined  for  debt 
in  the  said  prison  have  actually  died,  some  in  the  prison 
and  others  soon  after  their  enlargement,  and  that  many 
who  have  escaped  with  their  lives  have  contracted  such 
distempers  during  their  confinement  as  have  greatly  im- 
paired their  constitution  and  rendered  their  lives  very 
miserable.  So  that  it  may  be  truly  said  that  the  gaol  at 
Annapolis  besides  being  a  place  of  restraint  and  confine- 
ment has  also  been  a  place  of  death  and  torments  to  many 
unfortunate  people."2 

i  L.  H.  J.,  March  13,  1732. 
2  Ibid.,  April  1,  1736. 


256  MARYLAND    AS    A    PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

Again,  as  late  as  1769,  the  lower  house  represented  to 
the  governor  to  what  a  great  extent  prisoners  were  sub- 
ject to  the  power  of  the  sheriff,  how  some  unfortunate 
people  were  reduced  to  the  "  anguish  of  a  jail,  and  exposed 
to  all  the  miseries  of  cold  and  wet,  in  the  most  inclement 
seasons  of  the  year,"  and,  in  particular,  how,  by  the  order 
of  a  certain  sheriff,  a  prisoner  had  been  illegally,  cruelly, 
and  ignominiously  scourged  by  the  hand  of  a  slave."  1  At 
the  same  time,  the  prisons  were  so  insecure  that  it  was  a 
common  occurrence  for  those  deserving  punishment  to 
make  their  escape. 

Nevertheless,  from  the  year  1732,  the  General  Assembly 
was  by  no  means  indifferent  as  to  the  condition  of  the 
prisons.  In  the  act  of  that  year  for  issuing  .£90,000  in 
paper  currency,  £500  for  each  county  were  appropriated 
for  the  building  of  county  jails.  The  committee  that 
reported  the  condition  of  the  prison  at  Annapolis  recom- 
mended the  erection,  as  a  prison,  of  a  two-story  brick 
building,  sixty  feet  by  twenty  feet,  with  several  windows, 
separate  apartments,  a  fireplace  in  each,  and  a  dungeon 
under  the  first  story  in  which  to  confine  malefactors. 
The  governor  was  asked  to  remove  the  sheriff  who  had  so 
maltreated  the  prisoner  referred  to  above.  Again,  in  the 
year  1732-33  the  Assembly  passed  an  act  by  which  a  pris- 
oner for  debt  might  gain  his  liberty  in  response  to  his 
petition  to  the  Assembly  and  on  condition  that  he  deliv- 
ered up  on  oath  whatever  property  he  had  that  was  of  the 
value  of  forty  shillings  or  more.  The  number  of  petitions 
received  by  the  Assembly,  in  accordance  with  this  law,  in- 
creased from  year  to  year  until,  during  the  closing  years 
of  the  proprietary  government,  from  fifty  to  more  than 
one  hundred  such  prisoners  were  restored  to  liberty  at 
every  session  of  assembly. 

1  L.  H.  J.,  December  18,  1769. 


THE    ADMINISTRATION    OF   JUSTICE  257 

No  other  controversy  between  the  lord  proprietor  and 
the  representatives  of  the  people  had  a  more  important 
bearing  on  the  development  of  the  Maryland  charter  than 
did  that  over  the  laws  according  to  which  justice  — 
especially  in  criminal  cases  —  should  be  administered  by 
the  justices  in  the  several  courts.  In  the  controversy  over 
fees  was  involved  the  claim  of  the  people  as  English  sub- 
jects to  a  control  over  taxation.  But  in  the  controversy 
over  the  laws  according  to  which  justice  should  be  admin- 
istered, it  was  felt  by  the  people  that  there  was  involved 
the  right  of  the  people  as  English  subjects  to  inherit  the 
liberty  which  had  been  or  was  yet  to  be  secured  by  the 
whole  body  of  common  and  statute  law  of  the  mother 
country. 

During  the  first  thirty  years  after  the  grant  of  the 
charter  the  tendency  was  more  and  more  toward  provid- 
ing the  province  with  a  criminal  code  independent  of  the 
mother  country,  toward  introducing  only  such  English 
statutes  and  usages  as  all  parts  of  the  legislature  could 
agree  upon,  and  toward  giving  the  judges  unlimited  discre- 
tion in  all  cases  in  which  the  laws  of  the  province  gave 
no  direction.  It  was,  however,  the  Assembly  which  had 
been  elected  during  the  Claiborne  and  Ingle  rebellion,  — 
known  as  the  Hill  Assembly,  —  but  continued  by  Gov- 
ernor Calvert,  that  passed  the  act,  in  the  year  1646-47, 
which  tended  most  emphatically  in  the  direction  just 
indicated.  The  freemen  of  the  next  Assembly  unani- 
mously protested  against  the  validity  of  that  act  on  the 
ground  that  the  body  passing  it  had  not  been  lawfully 
constituted.  In  addition  to  such  an  act,  passed  under 
such  conditions,  there  was  yet  wanting  only  such  govern- 
ment as  was  administered  by  the  first  Charles  Calvert 
to  teach  the  people  to  value  more  highly  their  English 
birthright,  and  so   to   open  an    agitation    which    had   as 


258         MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

its  object  the  extension  of  the  whole  body  of  English 
common  and  statute  law  to  the  province  of  Maryland. 

In  the  second  Assembly,  —  the  first  one  of  which  any 
records  are  left,  —  it  was  agreed  that  the  governor's  com- 
mission gave  him  power  as  chief  justice  to  proceed  in  all 
civil  cases  and  in  all  criminal  cases,  not  extending  to  life 
or  member,  according  to  the  laws  of  England  ;  but  that 
in  criminal  cases  extending  to  life  or  member,  he  had  no 
such  power.1 

In  the  third  Assembly,  —  the  first  one  that  passed  any 
acts  that  became  laws,  —  bills  were  introduced  which  de- 
fined treason,  felonies,  and  other  great  offences,  and  named 
the  penalty  for  both  treason  and  felony.  But,  like  sev- 
eral other  bills  of  that  session,  although  they  passed  the 
second  reading,  for  some  reason  which  does  not  appear 
they  failed  to  become  laws.  In  their  stead  an  act  was 
passed  which  merely  provided  that  in  civil  cases  the 
chief  justice  and  his  associates  should  cause  right  and 
justice  to  be  done  according  to  the  laws  or  laudable  usage 
in  England  in  the  same  or  like  cases  ;  while  in  criminal 
cases  those  justices  were  authorized  to  punish  any  offender 
as  they  thought  he  deserved. 

One  act  of  1642  directed  that  in  civil  cases,  for  which 
no  law  or  usage  of  the  province  provided,  justice  should 
be  administered  according  to  equity  and  good  conscience, 
"  not  neglecting  the  rules  by  which  right  and  justice  used 
and  ought  to  be  determined  in  England  in  the  same  or  the 
like  cases."  With  respect  to  criminal  cases,  the  same  act 
directed  that,  in  default  of  the  laws  of  the  province,  all 
crimes  and  offences  should  be  determined  according  to  the 
best  discretion  of  the  court,  provided  that  no  person  should 
be  adjudged  of  life,  member,  or  freehold,  or  to  be  outlawed 
or  exiled  or  fined  above  one  thousand  pounds  of  tobacco 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1637-38  to  1664,  p.  9. 


THE   ADMINISTRATION    OF   JUSTICE  259 

"without  law  certain  of  the  province."  Another  act  of 
the  same  year  introduced  into  the  province  the  law  of 
Edward  III  with  respect  to  treason,  as  well  as  the 
law  of  England  for  punishing  any  one  convicted  of 
wilful  murder,  and  then  declared  that  conspiring  the 
death  of  the  lord  proprietor  or  the  governor  or  attempt- 
ing any  premeditated  violence  against  either  of  them,  or 
being  accessory  to  the  same,  should  be  punished  by  death 
and  forfeiture  of  all  the  offender's  lands,  goods,  and 
chattels. 

Still  other  acts  of  that  year  provided  that  such  offences 
as  homicide,  piracy,  robbery,  burglary,  sacrilege,  sodomy, 
sorcery,  rape,  and  larceny  should  be  determined  by  the 
judge  as  near  as  might  be  according  to  the  laws  of  Eng- 
land. Any  one  found  guilty  of  such  offence  might  be 
sentenced  to  death,  to  burning  in  the  hand,  to  loss  of 
member,  to  loss  of  property,  to  be  outlawed  or  exiled,  or 
to  be  imprisoned  for  life.  Any  one  guilty  of  striking  an 
officer,  juror,  or  witness  in  the  presence  of  the  court,  or 
any  one  found  guilty  of  perjury  might  be  deprived  of  his 
right  hand,  be  burned  in  the  hand,  be  made  to  suffer  any 
corporal  punishment  (not  extending  to  life),  or  be  fined 
as  the  court  should  think  fit.  Any  one  convicted  of  being 
drunk  was  to  be  fined  one  hundred  pounds  of  tobacco,  or, 
if  a  servant  who  could  not  pay  the  fine,  he  might  be  im- 
prisoned or  set  in  the  stocks.  Finally,  any  one  convicted 
of  profane  cursing  or  swearing  was  to  forfeit  five  pounds 
of  tobacco.  All  these  acts  of  1642  were  passed  twice  that 
year,  and  the  last  time  their  duration  was  limited  to  three 
years. 

The  first  Assembly  that  met  after  their  expiration  was 
the  Hill  Assembly  already  referred  to,  and  the  only  act 
on  record  that  was  passed  by  it  was  one  concerning  judi- 
cature, which  was  as  follows  :  "  All  justice,  as  well  civil 


260         MARYLAND    AS   A    PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

as  criminal,  shall  be  administered  by  the  governor  or 
other  chief  judge  in  court  according  to  the  laws  of  the 
province,  and  in  defect  of  law,  then  according  to  the  sound 
discretion  of  the  said  governor  or  other  Chief  Judge  and 
such  of  the  council  as  shall  be  present  in  court  or  the 
major  part  of  them.  And  if  the  vote  of  the  Council  differ 
equally,  the  vote  of  the  Governor  or  other  Chief  Judge  in 
court  shall  cast  it."  Observe  that  the  duration  of  this 
act  was  not  limited ;  and  although  the  contents  themselves 
became  very  objectionable  before  1689,  yet  during  the  few 
years  immediately  following  its  passage  it  would  appear 
that  the  protest  raised  against  its  validity  originated,  not 
so  much  because  of  those  contents  as  because  of  the  far- 
reaching  power  claimed  by  the  governor  to  determine 
what  should  constitute  a  lawful  assembly.1 

The  Assembly,  only  two  years  later,  without  any  appar- 
ent effort  to  secure  to  the  people  their  right  to  English 
law,  again  took  such  action  in  criminal  matters  as  the 
lord  proprietor  desired.  It  passed  an  act  of  unlimited 
duration,  which  provided  that  such  offenders  as  should 
be  convicted  of  making  mutinous  or  seditious  speeches 
tending  to  divert  the  obedience  of  the  people  from  the 
lord  proprietor  or  the  governor  should  be  liable  to  one  or 
more  of  the  following  punishments  :  imprisonment  during 
pleasure  (not  exceeding  one  year),  fine,  banishment,  bore- 
ing  of  the  tongue,  slitting  of  the  nose,  cutting  of  one  or 
both  ears,  whipping,  or  branding  with  a  red-hot  iron  in 
the  hand  or  forehead.  One  year  later,  also,  acts  of  unlim- 
ited duration  provided  that  such  as  should  be  found  guilty 
of  adultery  or  fornication  should  be  punished  as  the  jus- 
tices saw  fit,  except  that  for  such  offences  no  one  was  to 
be  deprived  of  life  or  member ;  they  fixed  the  fine  that 
should  be    imposed  for  drunkenness  and  swearing ;  and 

1  Supra,  p.  196. 


THE   ADMINISTRATION    OF   JUSTICE  261 

they  directed  that  airy  one  guilty  of  perjury,  of  striking 
an  officer  in  the  discharge  of  his  official  duties,  or  of  strik- 
ing an  officer,  a  juror,  or  a  witness  in  the  presence  of  the 
court,  should  be  nailed  to  the  pillory,  deprived  of  both 
ears,  or  made  to  suffer  such  other  corporal  punishment  as 
the  justices  should  see  fit. 

At  the  close  of  the  year  1650,  then,  it  appears  that  the 
laws  of  the  province  which  directed  the  judges  in  criminal 
cases  were  principally  those  relating  to  mutiny,  sedition, 
adultery,  fornication,  drunkenness,  swearing,  perjury,  and 
forcible  interference  with  officials  while  in  the  discharge  of 
their  duties.  In  other  cases,  one  other  law  authorized  the 
judges  to  act  according  to  their  "sound  discretion." 

Nearly  the  same  condition  existed  twelve  years  later, 
when,  during  the  first  session  of  assembly  under  Charles 
Calvert,  the  lower  house  passed  a  bill  in  which  —  after  it 
was  stated  that  the  allowance  of  great  discretion  to  the 
judges  had  left  too  much  room  for  corruption — it  was 
provided  that  in  all  cases  where  the  laws  of  the  province 
were  silent  justice  should  be  administered  according  to 
the  laws  and  statutes  of  England  if  pleaded  and  produced. 
The  upper  house  objected  to  the  bill  on  the  ground  that 
county  courts  would  not  know  when  a  law  of  England 
was  rightly  pleaded,  and  asked  if  all  laws,  however  incon- 
sistent they  might  be,  were  to  be  admitted  into  the  prov- 
ince.1 However,  after  the  bill  had  been  so  amended  as  to 
leave  each  court  to  judge  as  to  the  right  pleading  and  the 
consistency  that  might  come  into  question,  the  bill  became 
a  law  and  was  continued  in  force  until  1674. 

But  in  that  year  the  upper  house  asked  for  a  conference 
to  draw  up  a  list  of  such  laws  of  England  as  should  be 
deemed  necessary  to  direct  the  judges  of  the  provincial 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  Genera)  Assembly,  1637-38  to  1664,  pp. 
435,  436,  448,  504. 


262         MARYLAND   AS    A    PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

court  in  criminal  cases.  The  conference  being  agreed  to, 
four  members  of  the  upper  house  met  with  six  of  the  lower 
house.  Yet,  after  the  upper  house  had  passed  the  bill 
embodying  such  a  list,  the  lower  house  voted  that  it  was 
unnecessary  to  consider  it,  since  they  conceived  the  laws 
of  England  ought  to  be  esteemed  and  judged  in  full  force 
and  power  in  Maryland  ;  and  it  availed  nothing  for  the 
upper  house  to  contend  that  as  some  of  the  laws  of  Eng- 
land would  be  inconvenient  and  that  others  of  them  were 
often  repealed  without  the  knowledge  of  the  Maryland 
courts,  dangerous  consequences  would  necessarily  follow 
from  admitting  that  all  the  laws  of  England  were  in  force 
in  the  trial  of  criminal  cases.  The  lower  house  was  not 
troubled  by  such  argument,  and  after  they  had  been  told 
that  the  law  of  1662  for  the  administration  of  justice 
according  to  the  laws  of  England  had  to  do  with  civil 
cases  only,  they  asked  to  have  it  extended  to  criminal 
cases  as  well.  Instead  of  making  any  such  amendment, 
however,  the  law  of  1662  was  suffered  to  expire,  and 
the  status  of  1650  was  again  restored.1 

Nothing  further  was  done  with  respect  to  the  matter 
until  seven  years  later,  when  a  law  was  made  for  the  trial 
of  criminals  which  favored  the  view  held  by  the  upper 
house  with  respect  to  the  inconvenience  of  the  laws  of 
England,  but  which  must  have  met  the  approval  of  the 
lower  house  because  it  extended  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
county  courts.  The  preamble  first  stated  that,  although 
the  laws  of  England  against  thieving,  stealing,  and 
purloining  were  very  suitable  to  populous  countries, 
they  were  not  so  for  a  thinly  inhabited  province.  It 
was  there  stated  how,  by  following  the  laws  of  England, 
all  or  nearly  all  crimes  above  petty  larceny  were  punish- 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1666  to  1676,  pp. 
347,  348,  349,  374  et  seq. 


THE   ADMINISTRATION   OF   JUSTICE  263 

able  by  loss  of  member,  burning  in  the  hand  or  forehead, 
by  cropping  of  the  ears,  or  even  by  death,  and,  there- 
fore, could  be  tried  only  at  St.  Mary's  in  the  provincial 
court.  Lastly,  it  was  pointed  out  how  under  such 
conditions  the  remoteness  of  many  of  the  people  from 
that  court  caused  trials  for  small  offences  to  become  so 
tedious  and  expensive  that  prosecution  was  often  forborne 
to  the  great  encouragement  of  malefactors.  Consequently, 
the  law  provided  that  the  county  courts  should  have  juris- 
diction over  such  criminal  offences  as  thieving  or  stealing, 
where  the  value  exceeded  not  one  thousand  pounds  of 
tobacco.  Those  convicted  of  such  offences  were  to  be 
punished  by  whipping,  or  standing  in  the  pillory,  or  both, 
and  made  to  restore  fourfold  to  the  owner.  But  in  case 
of  a  third  offence  of  the  same  kind  by  the  same  party 
the  provincial  court  alone  was  to  have  jurisdiction  over 
it.  '    . 

Although,  in  order  thus  to  extend  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  county  courts  and  to  discourage  stealing,  English  law 
was  departed  from,  it  became  clear,  three  years  later,  in 
1684,  that  the  lower  house  was  in  no  way  disposed  to 
make  any  concession  of  its  former  claim,  in  behalf  of  the 
people,  to  their  right  to  the  English  laws.  For,  in  that 
year,  that  house  strove  to  have  the  perpetual  law  of 
1646-47  so  amended  as  to  include  the  essential  provision 
of  the  act  of  1662  with  respect  to  proceeding  under  certain 
conditions  according  to  the  laws  of  England.  But  while 
the  bill  for  thus  amending  that  law  was  before  the  upper 
house,  the  lord  proprietor  spoke  to  that  body  as  follows  : 
"  It  is  not  safe  to  have  justice  administered  according  to  the 
laws  of  England,  where  the  laws  of  this  province  are 
silent,  without  due  regard  had  by  the  Governor,  or  Chief 
Judge  and  the  Justices  in  court  to  the  consistency  of  such 
laws  of  England  to  the  constitution  and  present  condition 


264         MARYLAND   AS    A    PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

of  this  assembly,  it  seeming  to  me  unreasonable  that  since 
his  Majesty  of  ever  blessed  memory  out  of  the  fulness  of 
his  royal  power  was  graciously  pleased  to  permit  me  with 
the  consent  of  the  freemen  to  make  such  wholesome  laws 
as  should  be  consonant  to  reason  and  not  repugnant  to  the 
laws  of  England,  I  should  by  an  act  oblige  and  tie  up  the 
freemen  of  this  province  to  be  concluded  by  such  laws  of 
England  as  may  ruin  them,  or  at  least  be  greatly  injuri- 
ous in  several  respects  to  them.  I  am  therefore  willing 
to  admit  this  alteration,  that  where  the  laws  of  this  prov- 
ince are  silent,  justice  may  be  administered  according  to 
the  laws  of  England,  if  the  Governor  or  Chief  Judge  and 
the  justices  of  my  court  shall  find  such  laws  consistent 
with  the  condition  of  the  province.  To  a  bill  with  this 
alteration  I  will  set  my  hand,  but  not  otherwise."  J  After 
listening  to  such  words  the  upper  house  had  sufficient 
excuse  for  rejecting  the  amendment ;  and  the  lower  house 
at  that  time  did  not  see  fit  to  enter  into  any  controversy 
with  the  lord  proprietor  about  it. 

The  matter  was  before  the  Assembly  but  once  more 
before  the  Revolution  came,  and  then  only  incidentally,  in 
the  year  1688.  But  it  was  at  that  time  introduced  in  the 
form  of  a  resolution  of  the  lower  house  —  a  manner  of 
expression  that  was  yet  rare  with  that  body,  but  one 
which  after  the  first  quarter  of  the  following  century 
became  so  formidable.  The  resolution  was,  "  That  this 
house  do  in  the  name  of  the  whole  province  which  we 
represent  demand  the  benefit  of  the  laws  of  England  and 
of  this  Province  as  our  inherent  and  just  right,  which  we 
have  hitherto  been  deprived  of  in  not  having  the  last 
writs  of  election  and  journals  returned  as  desired  by  this 
house."2 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1684  to  1692,  p.  38 
et  seq.  2  Ibid.,  p.  162. 


THE   ADiMINISTRATION   OF   JUSTICE  265 

With  the  establishment  of  the  royal  government  it  was 
inserted  in  commissions  to  the  justices  that  justice  should 
be  administered  according  to  the  laws  of  England  and  of 
the  province.  The  act  of  1646-47,  which  allowed  so 
much  discretion  to  the  judges,  ceased  to  be  in  force.  In 
its  place  was  passed  an  act  —  similar  to  that  of  1662,  but 
less  conditional  —  which  directed  that  where  the  laws  of 
the  province  were  silent  justice  should  be  administered 
according  to  the  laws  of  England. 

But  still  this  did  not  serve  as  a  final  settlement  of  the 
question.  In  1696,  when  the  lower  house  insisted  on 
having  a  clause  introduced  into  a  bill  for  the  establish- 
ment of  religious  worship  which  was  worded  so  as  to 
imply  that  all  the  laws  of  England  extended  to  the 
province,  the  upper  house  would  not  pass  it  until  some 
lawyers  had  given  it  as  their  opinion  that  the  clause  would 
not  be  of  much  force.  Even  then  the  crown  disallowed  it 
for  the  reason  that  the  clause  in  question  was  of  a  differ- 
ent nature  from  that  which  was  set  forth  in  the  title  of 
the  said  bill.1 

During  the  whole  of  the  royal  period,  however,  it  was 
not  denied  that  in  general  the  laws  of  England  did  extend 
to  the  province.  Neither  was  it  denied  during  that  period 
that  there  were  among  those  laws  some  which  did  not 
extend  thither.  The  difficulty  lay  in  separating  the  one 
class  from  the  other ;  and  it  is  clear  that  the  lower  house 
felt  that  no  agreement  could  be  reached  whereby  the  right 
of  the  people  would  not  be  encroached  upon.  Otherwise 
the  matter  would  doubtless  have  been  settled ;  for  the  low 
moral  condition  prevailing  during  the  early  years  of  the 
eighteenth  century  gave  rise  to  a  general  desire  for  a  clear 
understanding  as  to  what  laws  were  to  be  enforced.  Thus, 
in  1706,  the  upper  house  claimed  that  judges  were  uncer- 

i  U.  H.  J.,  December  30,  1699. 


266  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

tain  as  to  whether  the  laws  of  England  against  bigamy 
extended  to  Maryland.  Therefore  that  house  desired  the 
Assembly  either  to  declare  that  those  laws  did  extend  to 
the  province,  or  else  pass  some  act  against  such  an  offence.1 
Again,  in  1712,  the  committee  on  grievances  represented 
that,  because  no  act  of  assembly  declared  what  English 
statutes  were  in  force  in  Maryland,  it  was  left  to  the  dis- 
cretion of  the  judges  to  admit  or  to  reject  them  ;  that 
under  such  conditions  an  act  of  parliament  was  recognized 
in  one  court  but  not  in  another ;  and  that  consequently 
the  people  knew  not  what  acts  of  parliament  they  trans- 
gressed or  what  were  for  their  relief.2 

In  response  to  such  complaints,  the  lower  house,  in  1706, 
resolved  that  when  offences  were  not  provided  against  by 
acts  of  the  Maryland  Assembly,  a  bill  should  be  brought 
in  declaring  that  acts  of  parliament  had  been  and  were 
still  in  force  in  Maryland.  The  house  then  ordered  the 
chief  justice  of  the  provincial  court,  who  was  at  that  time 
chairman  of  the  committee  on  laws  in  their  house,  to  pre- 
pare a  list  of  those  laws  of  England  that  were  to  be  con- 
sidered in  force  in  Maryland.  After  the  chief  justice  had 
submitted  his  list  and  the  house  had  pronounced  it  incom- 
plete, that  body  appointed  two  others  of  its  members  to 
amend  it.  Perhaps  such  a  list  —  made  to  meet  the  ap- 
proval not  of  the  other  branches  of  the  legislature  but  of 
the  lower  house  alone  —  was  intended  as  a  sufficient  guide 
to  the  judges. 

At  any  rate,  this  was  as  far  as  the  lower  house  seemed 
very  anxious  to  go.  For  although,  in  1712,  that  house 
resolved  that  it  was  highly  necessary  to  pass  an  act  for 
declaring  what  laws  of  England  were  in  force  in  Mary- 
land,  the  matter  was  referred   to   the   next  Assembly.3 

1  U.  H.  J.,  April  12,  1706.  2  L<  H.  J.,  November  6,  1712. 

8  Ibid. 


THE   ADMINISTRATION   OF   JUSTICE  267 

Again,  two  years  later,  when,  at  the  suggestion  of  the 
new  governor,  the  upper  house  proposed  that  the  Assem- 
bly should  request  some  of  the  queen's  council  and  others 
most  eminent  in  the  law  to  give  their  opinion  as  to  what 
laws  of  England  extended  to  Maryland,  the  lower  house 
declined  to  join  in  such  a  request,  saying  that  a  matter 
of  so  great  importance  needed  mature  consideration,  and 
hence  ought  to  be  referred  to  the  next  Assembly.1  There 
the  matter  rested  until  seven  years  after  the  restoration 
of  the  proprietary  government. 

It  was  then  a  period  of  calm  followed  by  a  decade  of 
intense  agitation.  In  1722  the  young  lord  proprietor 
decided  that  no  laws  of  England  extended  to  Maryland 
except  those  in  which,  by  express  words,  the  dominions 
were  mentioned.  In  that  year,  therefore,  he  vetoed  an 
act  of  assembly  which  he  thought  seemed  by  implication 
to  introduce  all  the  English  statutes  into  his  province. 
At  the  same  time  he  declared  that  whenever  an  English 
statute  was  found  to  be  convenient  and  well  suited  to  the 
conditions  in  the  province,  it  could  be  introduced  only  by 
act  of  assembly.  In  other  words,  the  people  of  Mary- 
land were  not  to  enjoy  the  benefit  of  English  statutes  in 
general  without  the  lor'd  proprietor's  consent.2 

Although  the  lord  proprietor  afterward  stated  that  the 
most  commonly  received  opinions  of  the  best  lawyers  in 
England  sustained  him  in  his  view  of  this  matter,  and 
although  he  was  likewise  sustained  by  the  usage  in  other 
English  colonies,  later  events  showed  that  previous  prac- 
tice and  disputation  in  Maryland  had  made  it  inexpedient 
for  him  to  act  in  accord  therewith.  Without  some  express 
provision  to  the  contrary,  it  was  natural  for  the  people  of 
a  province  to  claim  that,  if  they  were  a  free  people,  they 

1  U.  H.  J.,  June  28,  29,  and  July  1,  1714. 
2U.  H.  J.,  March  19,  1722. 


268         MARYLAND   AS    A   PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

were  entitled  to  the  laws  of  their  mother  country.  The 
people  of  Maryland  were  becoming  exceedingly  jealous  of 
the  lord  proprietor's  powers,  and  they  felt  that  the  inter- 
pretation of  the  charter,  with  respect  to  his  powers  and 
their  rights,  very  largely  depended  on  the  settlement  of 
this  question.  Previous  to  1689  it  had  been  the  practice, 
in  many  cases,  to  administer  justice  according  to  the  laws 
of  England ;  and  ever  since  1692  the  commissions  to  the 
justices  had  directed  them  to  act  according  to  the  laws 
of  England  and  of  Maryland.  Therefore,  in  view  of 
these  facts,  after  the  people  had  so  much  strengthened 
their  power  in  government  during  the  twenty-three  years 
of  the  royal  period,  it  was  unwise  for  this  young  lord 
proprietor  to  take  a  position  on  a  vital  question  that 
was  more  far-reaching  in  its  consequences  than  that 
taken  on  the  same  question  by  his  predecessor  in  the  year 
1684. 

The  lower  house  was  at  once  thoroughly  arou'sed. 
The  members  of  that  body  held  that  not  to  acknowledge 
the  right  of  the  people  to  those  laws  was  to  liken  them 
to  a  conquered  people  such  as  were  the  inhabitants  of 
Jamaica.  In  their  intercourse  by  messages  with  the  upper 
house,  they  were  charged  with  casfing  invidious  reflections, 
and  of  accusing  that  house  of  taking  such  a  course  as 
tended  to  the  subversion  of  the  constitution.  In  an  ad- 
dress to  the  lord  proprietor,  this  representative  body  said : 
"  If  the  English  statutes  do  not  extend  to  the  plantations 
unless  by  express  words  thither,  then  the  Great  Charter  and 
all  the  statutes  to  the  grant  of  your  Lordship's  charter  are 
struck  off  at  once  from  our  rule  of  privileges  ;  for  they 
could  not  by  express  words  be  located  hither  since  they 
were  made  long  before  Maryland  was  known  or  thought 
of.  .  .  .  But  they  do  and  ever  did  extend  to  Mary- 
land.    How   could   the   people    of    Maryland   enjoy  the 


THE   ADMINISTRATION  OF   JUSTICE  269 

privileges  of  Englishmen  if  they  did  not  enjoy  the 
English  laws?"1 

Furthermore,  that  house  made  its  committee  on  griev- 
ances also  a  committee  on  courts  of  justice,  and  instructed 
it  to  watch  the  form  of  commissions  and  oaths  of  judges 
—  especially  those  commissions  which  required  justice 
to  be  administered  according  to  the  laws  of  England. 
From  this  time  also,  until  the  overthrow  of  the  proprietary 
government,  there  were  among  the  standing  resolutions  of 
the  lower  house  the  following :  — 

"  Resolved  that  this  province  is  not  under  the  circum- 
stances of  a  conquered  country,  that  if  it  were  the  present 
Christian  inhabitants  thereof  would  be  in  the  circumstances 
not  of  the  conquered  but  of  the  conquerors.  It  being  a 
•colony  of  the  English  nation  encouraged  by  the  Crown  to 
transplant  themselves  hither  for  the  sake  of  enlarging  and 
improving  its  dominions  which,  by  the  blessings  of  God 
on  their  endeavors  at  their  own  expense  and  labor,  has 
been  in  great  measure  obtained.  And  it  is  unanimously 
resolved  that  whoever  shall  advance  that  his  Majesty's 
subjects  by  such  their  endeavors  and  success  have  for- 
feited any  part  of  their  English  liberties  are  ill  wishers  to 
the  country  and  mistake  its  happy  constitution." 

"  Resolved  further  that  this  province  hath  always 
hitherto  had  the  common  law  and  such  general  statutes  of 
England  as  are  not  restrained  by  words  of  local  limitation 
in  them  and  such  acts  of  assembly  as  were  made  in  the 
province  to  suit  its  particular  constitution  as  the  rule  and 
standard  of  government  and  judicature,  such  statutes  and 
acts  of  assembly  being  subject  to  like  rules  of  common 
law  or  equitable  construction  as  are  used  by  the  judges  in 
construing  statutes  in  England,  which  happy  rules  have 
by  his  Majesty  and  his  royal  ancestors  and  by  his  Lord 

iL.  H.  J.,  October  21,  1723. 


270         MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

ship  and  his  noble  ancestors  or  some  of  them,  been 
hitherto  approved  by  the  commissions  of  judicature  to 
include  directions  of  that  nature  to  the  several  judicial 
magistrates  unless  those  words  have  at  any  time  been 
carelessly  and  casually  omitted  by  the  officers  of  this 
province  that  draw  such  commissions,  that  therefore  who- 
ever shall  advise  him  or  his  successors  to  govern  by  any 
other  rules  of  government  are  evil  counsellors,  ill  wishers 
to  his  Lordship,  to  the  present  happy  constitution,  and 
intend  thereby  to  infringe  our  English  liberties,  and  to 
frustrate  in  great  measure  the  intent  of  the  Crown  by  the 
original  grant  of  this  province  to  the  Lord  Proprietor.  " * 

Up  to  this  time  the  form  of  the  judge's  oath  had  been 
prescribed  by  the  governor  and  council.  But  in  1724  the 
committee  on  grievances  and  courts  of  justice  reported 
that  by  the  form  of  oath  then  in  use,  judges  were  made  to 
swear  that  they  would  do  "  equal  right  to  the  poor  as  well 
as  to  the  rich,  according  to  their  cunning,  skill,  and  knowl- 
edge, and  according  to  the  precedents  and  customs  of  the 
province  and  acts  of  assembly."  As  such  an  oath  was  not 
in  accord  with  the  commissions  of  the  same  judges,  nor  with 
the  recent  resolutions  of  the  lower  house,  that  branch  of  the 
legislature  sought  to  have  the  form  of  oath  prescribed  by 
an  act  of  assembly,  and  thereby  to  bring  about  a  more 
positive  and  definite  determination  of  the  question  relat- 
ing to  the  extension  of  the  English  statutes  to  Maryland. 

Accordingly,  at  the  request  of  the  lower  house,  Daniel 
Dulany,  the  attorney  general  and  also  a  member  of  the 
lower  house,  drew  up  the  form  of  an  oath  by  which  judges 
were  to  swear  that  they  would  do  equal  right  to  the  poor 
as  well  as  to  the  rich,  "According  to  the  laws,  statutes, 
and  reasonable  customs  of  England  and  the  acts  of  as- 
sembly and  usage  of  this  province  of  Maryland."2    When 

i  L.  H.  J.,  October  22,  1722.  2  7&^m  October  13,  1724. 


THE   ADMINISTRATION   OF   JUSTICE  271 

this  had  been  laid  before  the  upper  house,  that  body 
claimed  that  by  such  an  oath  the  judges  would  be  bound 
to  administer  justice  according  to  the"  laws  of  England, 
even  in  those  cases  in  which  such  a  course  would  cause 
"  ruin  to  the  good  people  "  of  the  province.  Therefore, 
they  desired  that  the  clause  quoted  above  should  be  left 
out  until  the  lord  proprietor  should  have  advised  the 
governor  and  council  as  to  whether  it  was  consistent  with 
the  charter  and  agreeable  to  the  constitution  and  general 
welfare  of  the  province.1 

But  the  lower  house  contended  that  the  clause  in  ques- 
tion was  in  strict  accord  with  the  judges'  commissions, 
which  it  but  helped  to  explain.  It  held  that  with  respect 
to  this  matter  it  was  the  duty  of  the  council  and  the 
Assembly  to  give  advice  to  the  lord  proprietor,  and  that 
until  he  had  received  such  advice  it  was  impracticable  for 
him,  a  stranger  at  so  great  a  distance,  to  give  any  advice 
to  the  governor  and  council.  Then,  in  the  conclusion  of 
the  same  message,  the  lower  house  showed  its  independent 
spirit  in  the  following  words  :  "  We  shall  never  prosti- 
tute plain  dealing  to  the  servile  force  of  compliment  when 
our  Country's  good,  your  Honors,  and  our  duty  requires 
plainness.  We  shall  rather  choose  to  bear  your  censure 
if  we  incur  it  than  be  wanting  in  this  part  and  in  pursuit 
of  this  resolution.  .  .  .  We  shall  always  think  we  best 
recommend  ourselves  to  his  Lordship  by  plain  truths, 
though  they  should  prove  displeasing,  and  shall  ever 
make  it  our  choice  rather  to  serve  his  Lordship  without 
pleasing  him  than  to  please  him  without  serving  him 
should  those  offices  ever  unhappily  be  incompatible,  and 
in  the  same  manner  we  now  treat  your  honors."2 

Though  the  feelings  of  the  upper  house  were  deeply 
wounded  by  such  messages,  after  the  objectionable  clause 

i  U.  H.  J.,  October  20,  22,  1724.  2  L.  H.  J.,  October  28,  1724. 


272         MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

in  the  old  bill  was  altered  so  as  to  read,  "  According  to 
the  laws,  statutes,  and  reasonable  customs  of  England, 
and  the  acts  of  assembly  and  constitution  of  this  pro- 
vince," it  passed  both  houses.1  But  neither  the  governor 
nor  the  lord  proprietor  would  assent  to  it,  even  after  the 
upper  house,  in  an  address  to  the  lord  proprietor,  had  ex- 
pressed more  than  doubt  as  to  his  position  being  tenable.2 

Little  more  was  done  with  respect  to  the  matter  until 
the  year  1727.  In  the  meantime  the  weak  governor  per- 
mitted the  judges  to  take  any  oaths  they  saw  fit,  with  the 
result  that  those  of  scarcely  any  two  courts  took  the 
same.3  So,  after  the  committee  on  grievances  and  courts 
of  justice  had  reported  that  under  such  conditions  they 
were  afraid  the  constitution  of  the  province  was  liable  to 
destruction,  the  lower  house  passed  an  oath  bill  couched 
in  the  same  terms  as  those  of  the  act  which  the  lord 
proprietor  had  rejected  two  years  before.  This  time 
the  upper  house  objected  to  the  bill  not  only  because 
it  was  the  same  as  the  previous  act  from  which  the  lord 
proprietor  had  already  dissented,  but  because  it  provided 
for  a  too  general  introduction  of  the  laws  of  England,  and 
because  it  gave  no  preference  to  the  acts  of  the  Maryland 
Assembly  when  provisions  contained  in  them  differed 
from  those  of  the  statutes  of  England.4 

But  in  response  to  the  request  of  the  upper  house  a 
conference  was  held,  and  thereby  the  following  phrase- 
ology was  agreed  upon  for  the  clause  in  question:  "Accord- 
ing to  the  directions  of  the  acts  of  assembly  so  far  forth  as 
they  provide,  and  where  they  are  silent,  according  to  the 
laws,  statutes,  and  reasonable  customs  of  England  agree- 
able  to  the   usage  and   constitution   of   this  province."5 

i  U.  H.  J.,  November  4,  1724.  •  L.  H.  J.,  October  14,  1727. 

2  Ibid.,  November  5,  1725.  <U.HJ.,  October  17,  1727. 

b  Ibid.,  October  18,  1727. 


THE   ADMINISTRATION    OF   JUSTICE  273 

With  this  clause  inserted  the  oath  bill  again  passed  both 
houses.  The  lord  proprietor,  however,  was  still  alarmed 
by  the  resolutions  of  the  lower  house  passed  in  1722,  and 
he  felt,  or  pretended  to  feel,  that  he  must  be  on  his  guard 
against  subtle  designs  to  encroach  on  his  prerogative  as 
well  as  on  that  of  the  crown.  He,  therefore,  disallowed 
the  act  of  1727,  and  sent  over  a  form  of  an  oath  in  which 
the  disputed  clause  read,  "According  to  the  laws,  customs, 
and  directions  of  the  acts  of  assembly  of  this  province, 
and  where  they  are  silent  according  to  the  laws,  stat- 
utes, and  reasonable  customs  of  England  as  have  been 
used  and  practised  in  this  province."1 

After  the  dissent,  the  reasons  therefor,  and  the  form  of 
oath  sent  by  the  lord  proprietor  had  been  laid  before  the 
lower  house,  in  1728,  the  province  became  more  thoroughly 
aroused  than  ever  before.  When  the  committee  on  laws 
had  reported  its  opinion  with  respect  to  the  form  of  oath 
sent  by  the  lord  proprietor,  the  lower  house  addressed 
the  governor  in  the  following  words :  "  Although  we  are 
really  concerned  that  there  should  be  any  difference  be- 
tween his  Lordship  and  his  tenants,  yet  it  is  the  greatest 
consolation  imaginable  to  us  to  know  that  they  have 
given  no  occasion  for  a  difference  unless  a  firm  attach- 
ment to  the  interest  and  welfare  of  their  country,  and  a 
fixed  resolution  to  hand  the  same  rights  and  liberties 
which  they  have  derived  from  their  ancestors  and  the 
laws  of  their  mother  country  and  this  province  pure  and 
undefiled  to  posterity  be  such.  If  these  be  causes  of 
differences,  we  hope  they  will  never  cease.  .  .  .  We  are 
at  a  loss  to  conceive  how  the  laying  of  judges  under  the 
obligation  of  an  oath  to  administer  justice  according  to 
the  laws  that  ought  to  be  the  rule  of  all  their  decisions 
could  give  his  Lordship  any  apprehensions  or  oblige  his 

*L.  H.  J.,  October  3,  4,  1728. 


274  MARYLAND   AS    A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

Lordship  to  dissent  to  an  act  that  has  no  other  tendency 
nor  can  without  the  greatest  violation  of  its  sense  and  the 
intention  of  the  makers  of  it  contained  in  clear  and  ex- 
plicit terms  be  otherwise  considered  but  to  oblige  the 
magistrates  to  do  their  duty.  .  .  .  We  have  taken  the 
form  of  oath  mentioned  in  your  Honor's  speech  into  our 
most  serious  consideration,  and  we  beg  leave  to  acquaint 
your  Honor  that  we  conceive  it  to  be  so  far  from  securing 
to  us  and  our  posterity  the  same  measure  of  law  and  right 
which  our  ancestors  and  ourselves  have  ever  enjoyed, 
that  it  is  calculated  (we  hope  contrary  to  his  Lordship's 
intentions)  to  undermine  all  or  the  greater  part  of  our 
most  valuable  privileges  and  to  deprive  us  of  the  means 
of  securing  them,  which  we  conceive  to  be  the  benefit  of 
all  the  English  laws,  securative  and  confirmatory  of  the 
rights  and  liberties  of  the  subject."  Then  it  was  pointed 
out  that  by  the  words,  "  as  have  been  used  and  practised 
in  this  province,"  the  people  of  Maryland  might  be  de- 
prived of  the  benefit  not  only  of  all  the  acts  of  parliament 
that  should  be  made  in  the  future,  but  also  such  of  the  acts 
of  parliament  already  made  as  were  not  shown  by  the  court 
records  to  have  been  already  made  use  of  in  the  province.1 
Several  days  later  the  lower  house  passed  another  oath 
bill  in  which  the  part  relating  to  the  laws  of  England 
was  as  follows,  "According  to  the  laws,  statutes,  and 
reasonable  customs  of  England  agreeable  to  the  use  and 
constitution  of  this  province."  The  upper  house  amended 
this  by  inserting  the  words  "  as  are "  before  the  word 
"agreeable."  But  when  the  lower  house  objected  on  the 
ground  that  "  as  are  "  and  "as  now  are"  were  convertible 
terms,  and  hence  too  nearly  like  the  form  proposed  by  the 
lord  proprietor,  the  upper  house  yielded  ;  and  for  the 
third  time  an  oath  bill  passed  both  houses. 

1  L.  H.  J.,  October  5  and  7,  1728. 


THE   ADMINISTRATION   OF   JUSTICE  275 

Never  before  had  the  spirit  of  the  lower  house  been 
more  resolute  than  at  this  session.  It  was  also  demon- 
strated at  this  time  that  that  body  was  possessed  of  an 
able  leader  in  the  person  of  Daniel  Dulany,  chairman  of 
its  committee  on  laws,  who,  in  clear  and  cogent  terms,  had 
drawn  up,  not  only  the  important  report  of  that  committee, 
but  also  the  address  to  the  governor.  Moreover,  the  influ- 
ence of  this  man  was  made  to  extend  far  beyond  the  walls 
of  the  assembly  room.  For,  the  month  following  the 
prorogation,  there  appeared  from  his  pen  a  pamphlet 
entitled,  The  Right  of  Maryland  to  the  Benefit  of  the 
English  Laws.  This  pamphlet  could  not  have  failed  to 
instruct  and  enlighten  the  people  and  thereby  strengthen 
their  cause,  for  like  his  other  writings  it  was  clear  in  ex- 
pression, sound  in  reason,  and  convincing  in  argument. 

Nevertheless,  the  lord  proprietor  again  rejected  the 
oath  bill.  And  again,  in  1730,  —  this  time  with  but 
little  discussion,  —  an  oath  bill  passed  both  houses  with 
the  following  provision  relating  to  the  laws  of  England, 
"  According  to  the  reasonable  customs  of  England  and 
the  laws  and  statutes  thereof  as  are  or  shall  hereafter  be 
enacted  agreeable  to  the  usage  or  constitution  of  this 
province."  2  A  joint  address  from  both  houses  was  sent 
to  the  lord  proprietor  urging  him  to  assent  to  this  act.2 
But  for  the  fourth  time  he  dissented. 

It  is,  therefore,  not  strange  that  in  1731,  when  the  new 
governor,  Ogle,  arrived,  he  found  the  country  "  as  hot  as 
possible  about  the  English  statutes  and  the  judge's  oath."  3 
It  is  not  strange  that  all  the  judges  of  Calvert  County 
had  refused  to  take  the  oath,  even  though  it  but  directed 
them  to  act  according  to  the  best  of  their  skill  and  cun- 
ning.    The  conditions  then  existing  also  explain  why  it 

1  L.  H.  J.,  June  5,  1730.  2  U.  H.  J.,  June  16,  1730. 

8  Calvert  Papers,  No.  2,  p.  82. 


276         MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

was  that  from  that  year  all  the  members  of  the  council 
were  placed  at  the  head  of  the  list  of  justices  for  each 
county.1 

This  same  year,  for  the  fifth  time,  both  houses  passed 
an  oath  bill.     But  this  time  it  did  not  pass  the  governor. 

Finally,  the  next  year,  1732,  just  after  an  election  of 
delegates,  Governor  Ogle  said  to  both  houses,  "I  am 
firmly  persuaded  that  his  Lordship  and  the  country  aim 
at  the  same  thing  in  relation  to  the  oath  of  judge  or  jus- 
tice, the  end  of  both  being  the  safety  of  the  people  and 
the  security  of  their  liberty  and  property,  though  they 
may  differ  a  little  in  the  means."  Although  he  laid  be- 
fore the  Assembly  the  same  form  of  an  oath  as  that  sent 
over  by  the  lord  proprietor  in  1728,  yet  he  said  that  if 
that  form  was  not  agreeable,  he  desired  assistance  in  repre- 
senting such  necessary  alterations  as  might  meet  the  ap- 
proval of  all  parties.  After  listening  to  this  speech  the 
lower  house  passed  a  bill  very  much  like  that  of  the  pre- 
ceding year.  But  after  the  upper  house  had  declined 
to  pass  it,  that  body  requested  a  conference.  The  lower 
house  granted  the  request.  A  conference  soon  agreed 
upon  the  form  of  an  oath  which,  embodied  in  a  bill,  passed 
both  houses,  was  signed  by  the  governor,  and  assented  to 
by  the  lord  proprietor.  In  that  bill  which  thus  became  a 
law  and  was  continued  in  force  to  the  end  of  the  proprie- 
tary government,  the  long-disputed  clause  was  as  follows, 
"  According  to  the  laws,  customs,  and  directions  of  the 
acts  of  assembly  of  this  province  so  far  forth  as  they 
provide,  and  where  they  are  silent  according  to  the  laws, 
statutes,  and  reasonable  customs  of  England  as  used  and 
practised  in  this  province." 

This  virtually  left  the  case  as  it  had  stood  in  the  year 
1722;  but  as  it  was  in  that  year  the  lord  proprietor  who 

1  Calvert  Papers,  No.  2,  pp.  83,  90. 


THE   ADMINISTRATION   OF   JUSTICE  277 

was  thought  to  be  endeavoring  to  destroy  precedent,  the 
success  of  the  bill  just  mentioned  was  regarded  as  a 
triumph  for  the  representatives  of  the' people.  Thereafter 
the  lord  proprietor  continued  to  instruct  the  governor  to 
pass  no  bill  whereby  the  English  statutes  should  be  intro- 
duced in  gross;  while  the  lower  house  occasionally  passed 
a  resolution  to  declare  some  favorite  English  statute  to  be 
in  force  within  the  province. 

However,  when  a  criminal  code  is  of  an  uncertain  and 
indefinite  character,  crime  must  necessarily  be  encouraged. 
That  this  was  the  case  in  Maryland  there  is  evidence  in  a 
message  sent  by  Governor  Eden  to  the  lower  house,  after 
both  he  and  his  predecessor,  Sharpe,  had  endeavored  to 
have  the  Assembly  determine  just  what  penal  statutes  of 
England  extended  to  Maryland.  Thus,  in  part,  he  said  : 
"  Persons  convicted  on  some  English  statutes  having  been 
discharged  with  impunity,  because  the  extent  of  those 
laws  was  doubted,  I  am  persuaded  that  the  principle  of 
apparent  lenity  not  being  as  generally  understood,  as  the 
impunity  has  been  observed,  the  circumstance  has  pro- 
duced a  degree  of  flattering  reliance  that  equal  tenderness 
would  be  shown  to  offenders  convicted  on  laws  indubita- 
bly existent  and  operative  ;  and  thus  the  uncertainty  I 
have  taken  notice  of,  by  lessening  the  dread  of  punish- 
ment, has  proved  an  insnaring  encouragement  to  the  com- 
mission of  crimes."1 

1  L.  H.  J.,  October  25, 1771.  The  penalties  that  were  imposed  by  acts  of 
the  Maryland  Assembly,  during  or  after  the  year  1715, were,  principally,  the 
following :  a  person  convicted  of  embezzling,  impairing,  razing,  or  alter- 
ing any  will  or  record  within  the  province,  whereby  the  estate  or  inheri- 
tance or  freehold  of  any  person  should  be  defeated,  injured,  or  in  any  ways 
altered,  was  to  forfeit  all  his  goods,  chattels,  lands,  and  tenements,  be  set 
in  the  pillory  for  two  hours,  and  have  both  his  ears  nailed  thereto  and  cut 
from  off  his  head  ;  a  person  convicted  of  stealing  that  which  was  valued  at 
less  than  one  thousand  pounds  of  tobacco  was  to  pay  fourfold,  be  put  in 


278         MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

the  pillory,  and  given  not  to  exceed  forty  lashes  ;  a  person  convicted  of 
fornication  was  to  be  fined  30s.  or  six  hundred  pounds  of  tobacco  ;  a  per- 
son convicted  of  adultery  was  to  be  fined  £3  or  twelve  hundred  pounds  of 
tobacco  ;  a  person  convicted  of  wilfully  burning  a  courthouse  was  to  suf- 
fer death  without  benefit  of  clergy  ;  a  person  convicted  of  blasphemy 
was  for  the  first  offence  to  be  bored  through  the  tongue  and  fined  £20 
sterling,  or,  if  unable  to  pay  the  fine,  be  imprisoned  for  six  months ;  for 
the  second  offence,  to  be  stigmatized  by  burning  in  the  forehead  with  the 
letter  B  and  fined  £40,  or,  if  unable  to  pay  the  fine,  be  imprisoned  for  one 
year ;  and  for  the  third  offence  to  suffer  death  without  benefit  of  clergy ; 
a  person  found  guilty  of  profane  swearing  was  to  be  fined  2s.  6d.  for  the 
first  offence  and  5s.  for  every  offence  after  the  first ;  a  drunkard  was  to  be 
fined  5s.  for  every  offence  of  drunkenness  —  if  the  swearer  or  drunkard  was 
unable  to  pay  the  fine,  he  was  to  be  put  in  the  stocks  or  given  not  to  ex- 
ceed thirty-nine  lashes ;  a  person  convicted  of  breaking  the  Sabbath  was 
to  be  fined  two  hundred  pounds  of  tobacco  ;  a  negro  or  other  slave  con- 
victed of  petit  treason,  or  murder,  or  wilfully  burning  a  house,  might  be 
sentenced  to  have  his  right  hand  cut  off,  hanged,  head  severed  from  the 
body,  body  divided  into  four  quarters  and  set  up  in  the  most  public  places 
of  the  county  where  the  act  was  committed  ;  a  person  convicted  of  break- 
ing into  a  shop,  storehouse,  or  warehouse,  and  stealing  from  thence  any 
goods  to  the  value  of  5s.,  was  to  suffer  death  as  a  felon  without  benefit  of 
clergy  ;  a  person  convicted  of  cutting  or  destroying  tobacco  or  exciting 
others  to  do  so  was  to  be  fined  £100  sterling  and  be  imprisoned  for  six 
months  ;  a  person  convicted  of  wilfully  burning  another's  tobacco,  or  of 
aiding  or  abetting  in  such  an  offence,  was  to  suffer  death  as  a  felon  without 
benefit  of  clergy  ;  a  slave  convicted  of  insurrection,  murder,  poison,  rape 
of  white  women,  or  burning  houses,  was  to  suffer  death  as  a  felon  with- 
out benefit  of  clergy. 


CHAPTER   IV 

MILITARY   AFFAIRS 

If,  besides  being  the  recipient  of  powers  similar  in  kind 
to  those  of  an  absolute  monarch,  the  lord  proprietor,  as 
grantee  of  the  soil,  had  been  able  out  of  his  own  private 
resources  to  provide  the  province  with  such  essentials  to 
self-preservation  as  military  protection  and  the  support 
of  a  civil  service,  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  how  those 
clauses  in  the  charter  which  guaranteed  to  the  people 
all  their  rights  as  English  subjects  could  have  been  en- 
forced, unless  by  the  interference  of  the  mother  country. 
But  as  grantee  of  the  soil  the  proprietor  was  thrown  into 
too  close  a  competition  with  the  crown  and  with  other 
proprietors  to  make  it  possible  for  him  to  obtain  an 
income  large  enough  to  meet  such  ends  and  to  supply 
his  more  private  wants.  The  consequence  was  that  for 
the  essentials  of  self-preservation,  the  most  potent  forces 
in  determining  the  development  of  the  province,  the  lord 
proprietor  was  dependent  on  the  people.  Even  the 
revenue  from  certain  duties,  which  the  people  claimed 
had  been  appropriated  for  the  purpose  of  defence,  was 
taken  by  the  lord  proprietor  for  his  private  use  ;  and 
such  claims  could  but  add  force  to  the  opposition.  Then, 
too,  as  the  neighboring  colonies  protected  Maryland  from 
the  Indians,  that  very  protection  helped  the  people  to 
refuse  to  place  more  than  a  very  weak  military  organi- 
zation  within  the  control  of   the  government.     Finally, 

279 


280         MARYLAND   AS    A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

during  the  fourth  intercolonial  war,  when  the  crown 
asked  for  assistance,  the  lower  house  passed  supply  bills 
greatly  prejudicial  to  the  lord  proprietor  ;  and  after  the 
upper  house  had  rejected  those  bills,  the  lower  house  did 
its  best  to  represent  the  whole  proprietary  system  in  an 
unfavorable  light  before  the  crown. 

At  the  beginning  the  lord  proprietor  made  the  gov- 
ernor his  "  Lieutenant  General,  Admiral,  Chief  Captain, 
and  Commander  as  well  by  sea  as  land,"  gave  him  power 
to  appoint  and  instruct  all  military  officers  under  him, 
and  instructed  him  to  cause  all  men  able  to  bear  arms  to 
be  trained  weekly  or  monthly.  But  unless  the  lord  pro- 
prietor himself  supported  a  standing  force  within  the 
province,  all  else  could  avail  little  without  an  effective  act 
of  assembly  to  provide  for  a  strongly  organized,  a  well- 
equipped,  and  a  well-disciplined  militia. 

There  is  little  doubt  but  that  the  militia  bill  which  was 
before  the  Assembly  in  the  year  1637-38  was  one  of  the 
bills  first  sent  over  by  the  lord  proprietor.  Among  those 
bills  which  passed  the  second  reading  in  the  j^ear  1638-39 
was  one  for  directing  every  housekeeper  to  keep  every 
one  of  his  household  that  was  able  to  bear  arms  furnished 
with  one  serviceable  gun,  one  shot  bag,  one  pound  of  good 
powder,  four  pounds  of  shot,  a  sword,  and  a  belt.  This 
same  bill  authorized  the  captain  of  St.  Mary's  and  the 
captain  of  Kent  Island,  or  any  of  their  sergeants,  to  de- 
mand once  a  month  at  every  dwelling  house  a  view  of 
arms  and  ammunition,  authorized  them  to  impose  a  fine 
for  every  default,  and  to  furnish  persons  with  whatever 
was  found  wanting  at  any  price  not  above  double  the  real 
value.  This  bill  also  provided  that  upon  any  alarm  every 
householder  of  each  hundred,  having  in  his  family  three 
men  or  more  able  to  bear  arms,  should  send  one  man  com- 
pletely armed  for  every  such  three  men  and  two  for  every 


MILITARY   AFFAIRS  281 

five,  and  so  proportionally  to  such  place  as  should  be 
appointed  by  the  commander  or  proper  officer  of  the  hun- 
dred.1 But  this  bill  did  not  become  *a  law,  and  in  its 
stead  was  passed  an  act  that  authorized  the  two  captains, 
at  the  discretion  of  the  governor,  to  use  and  command  all 
power  which  they  deemed  necessary  for  the  safety  and 
defence  of  the  province. 

With  ample  authority,  therefore,  rather  than  strong 
support,  the  governor,  advised  by  his  council,  was  left 
free  to  organize  the  militia  as  he  saw  fit.  Some  time  in 
the  first  years  of  the  colony  he  appointed  a  captain  for 
St.  Mary's  and  a  captain  for  Kent  Island  ;  and  either  he 
or  the  captain  appointed  a  sergeant  for  each  hundred. 
A  little  later  he  placed  the  mustering  and  training  of  the 
militia  of  the  whole  province  under  the  general  super- 
vision of  a  muster  master  general,  for  whose  -support, 
until  1671,  the  Assembly  caused  a  tax  of  four  pounds  of 
tobacco  per  poll  to  be  levied.  But  from  about  the  year 
1661  the  militia  of  each  county  was  placed  in  charge  of 
a  colonel  under  whom  were  majors,  captains,  lieutenants, 
and  sergeants.  On  some  occasions,  when  war  was  threat- 
ening, a  major  general  was  appointed  for  each  shore. 
The  office  of  mustermaster  general  became  extinct,  prob- 
ably before  the  year  1689. 

In  the  early  commissions,  the  captain,  with  the  aid  of 
the  sergeants,  was  authorized  by  the  governor  to  muster 
and  train  the  militia  as  often  as  he  saw  fit ;  also  to  view 
at  every  dwelling  house  the  arms  and  ammunition,  and 
to  fine  anybody  found  to  be  in  default  with  respect  to  the 
same  ;  and,  finally,  to  execute  martial  law  for  the  suppres- 
sion of  mutiny,  and  in  case  of  sudden  invasion  of  the 
Indians  to  make  war  against  them.2 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1637-38  to  1664, 
p.  77  et  seq.  2  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1636  to  1667,  pp.  75,  86. 


282         MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

But  how  strongly  inclined  the  people  were  to  keep 
military  power  within  their  own  control,  is  seen  from  the 
work  of  the  Assembly  in  1649.  An  act  made  that  year 
provided  for  a  meeting  of  the  freemen  of  each  hundred 
at  some  place  within  their  hundred  on  the  three  last  days 
of  each  month  from  April  to  September  inclusive.  At 
those  meetings  such  ordinances  were  to  be  passed  as  those 
present  deemed  necessary  for  the  defence  of  their  hundred 
during  the  month  following,  and  the  commander  of  the 
hundred  was  to  see  that  those  ordinances  were  put  into 
execution. 

Not  until  the  proprietary  government  had  been  tempo- 
rarily superseded  by  the  government  of  the  Puritan  com- 
missioners did  the  General  Assembly  pass  a  militia  act. 
But  even  by  that  act,  although  all  persons  between  the 
ages  of  sixteen  and  sixty  were  required  to  supply  them- 
selves with  serviceable  arms  and  sufficient  ammunition  of 
powder  and  shot,  though  the  captain  and  other  officers 
of  each  county  were  directed  to  view  the  arms  and  ammu- 
nition, and  each  captain  was  to  be  authorized  to  train  the 
militia,  there  were  no  specific  directions  given  and  no 
penalty  whatever  was  named  for  disobedience. 

Finally,  however,  in  1661,  a  more  adequate  militia  act 
was  passed.  Its  preamble  stated  that,  for  want  of  a 
necessary  law,  training  had  been  greatly  neglected  even 
in  time  of  danger.  This  act  authorized  the  colonel,  lieu- 
tenant colonel,  major,  and  captain  to  enlist  such  persons 
between  the  ages  of  sixteen  and  sixty  as  they  saw  fit, 
provided  only  that  a  uniform  proportion  was  kept  be- 
tween those  enlisted  and  the  entire  population  of  any 
district.  It  authorized  the  same  officers  to  train  the 
militia  four  times  a  year,  and  even  more  than  four  times 
if  the  governor  and  council  should  see  cause  for  so  order- 
ing.    Nothing  was  said  in  the  act  about  viewing  arms 


MILITARY    AFFAIRS  283 

and  ammunition  at  each  dwelling  house,  but  everybody 
summoned  to  the  place  of  training  was  to  appear  there 
with  gun  and  powder.  And  the  act  aimed  at  securing 
obedience  by  providing  for  the  imposition  of  fines  and  in 
certain  cases  for  imprisonment.  In  1678  the  act  was  so 
amended  as  to  empower  the  governor  and  council  to 
make  levies  on  the  people  whenever  it  was  necessary 
to  meet  the  payment  of  small  charges;  but  the  whole 
amount  so  levied  was  not  to  exceed  fifty  thousand  pounds 
of  tobacco  in  any  one  year.  At  the  same  time,  also, 
special  provision  was  made  in  the  act  for  a  company  of 
horse  in  each  county.  Otherwise  the  act  of  1661  was 
continued  with  but  little  change  down  to  the  Revolution 
of  1689,  and  even  upon  the  establishment  of  the  royal 
government  essentially  the  same  law  was  continued. 

The  training  of  the  militia  under  this  law  was  not  satis- 
factory to  the  government.  From  1697  to  1701  the  gov- 
ernor and  the  upper  house  again  and  again  urged  the  lower 
house  to  take  some  action  toward  providing  the  province 
with  a  more  serviceable  militia.  Recommendations  were 
made  for  giving  the  militia  officers  greater  power,  for  ap- 
pointing and  paying  a  master  adjutant  to  train  the  militia 
six  times  a  year,  and  for  requiring  every  six  taxables  to 
furnish  one  well-equipped  footman,  and  every  nine  taxa- 
bles one  well-equipped  trooper. 

In  1696  the  lower  house  referred  such  recommendations 
to  the  consideration  of  the  committee  on  laws.  Although 
that  committee  reported  as  their  opinion  that  the  execu- 
tion of  what  had  been  recommended  would  tend  much 
toward  the  regulation  of  the  militia,  it  nevertheless  held 
that  it  was  not  advisable  in  such  a  time  of  danger  from 
the  Indians  to  change  a  law  with  which  the  inhabitants 
were  so  well  acquainted.  It  proposed  that  a  copy  of  the 
recommendations  should  be  submitted  to  the  people  of 


284         MARYLAND    AS   A    PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

every  county,  who,  after  consideration  thereof,  should 
instruct  their  delegates  to  the  next  Assembly.1  The 
house  concurred  in  the  report  of  its  committee  and  stated 
that,  considering  the  great  deserts  between  the  inhabit- 
ants and  the  enemy,  it  thought  the  present  militia,  if  well 
armed,  would  be  sufficient  for  defence.  It  would  seem 
that  the  representative  body  was  well  sustained  by  its 
constituents,  for  that  same  body  gave  little  attention  to 
further  messages  from  the  other  branches  of  the  legisla- 
ture with  respect  to  the  militia  until  five  years  later.2 
Even  then  the  committee  appointed  for  considering  the 
proposed  changes  in  the  old  militia  law  reported  against 
such  changes  on  the  ground  that  the  defect  was  not  with 
the  law,  but  with  the  execution  of  it ;  and  again  the  lower 
house  concurred  with  the  report  of  its  committee  and  de- 
clared to  the  upper  house  that  the  constitution  of  the 
province  would  admit  of  no  better  law.3  Little  further 
discussion  arose  during  the  remainder  of  the  royal  period. 
In  1715  the  old  law  was  continued  by  an  act,  the  duration 
of  which  was  limited  to  three  years  and  to  the  end  of  the 
next  session  of  assembly  after  the  expiration  of  the  three 
years.  In  1719  it  was  likewise  continued.  In  1-721  the 
upper  house  complained  that,  for  want  of  power  in  the 
captains  to  fine  the  disobedient,  several  of  the  chief  militia 
officers  were  discouraged  from  performing  their  duty  by 
being  rather  despised  and  affronted  than  respected  and 
obeyed  by  private  sentinels.*  But  in  its  reply  to  this 
complaint  the  lower  house  gave  its  opinion  that  the  mili- 
tia law  provided  a  sufficient  punishment.  Later  messages 
from  the  upper  house  concerning  the  matter  were  likewise 
of  no  avail  until  the  next  year,  after  the  governor  had 
made  his  plea,  the  lower  house  was  persuaded  to  pass  an 

i  L.  H.  J.,  June  4,  1697.  3  Ibid.,  May  13,  1701. 

2  Ibid.,  March  26  and  November  2,  1698.     *  U.  H.  J.,  July  22,  1721. 


MILITARY    AFFAIRS  285 

act  which  authorized  any  two  field  officers  to  adjudge  fines 
and  award  execution  for  not  appearing  at  musters.  The  last 
provision  of  this  act  was  that  the  old  militia  law,  which  was 
about  to  expire,  should  be  revived  and  continued  in  full 
force;  and,  consequently,  as  the  new  act  was  unlimited  as  to 
its  duration,  the  old  law  was  at  this  time  made  perpetual. 

But  the  new  disciplinary  measure  did  not  serve  to  bring 
about  such  training  as  was  desired  ;  and  during  the  year  in 
which  the  controversy  over  English  statutes  was  put  to  rest, 
the  governor  again  asked  that  the  militia  officers  might  be 
given  sufficient  power  to  oblige  men  to  appear  at  musters 
and  learn  the  necessary  discipline.1  For  one  year  the  gov- 
ernor and  council,  out  of  the  duty  of  threepence  for  arms  and 
ammunition,  paid  an  adjutant  to  train  the  militia;  and  the 
lower  house  was  urged  to  pass  a  bill  to  provide  for  the  pay- 
ment of  such  an  officer.  The  next  year,  also,  during  -his  pres- 
ence in  the  General  Assembly,  the  lord  proprietor  himself 
recommended  amendments  to  the  militia  law.2  The  lower 
house  responded  by  passing  another  supplementary  militia 
act.  Yet  that  act  went  no  further  than  to  provide  for  a  dis- 
tribution of  arms  and  ammunition  and  to  impose  insufficient 
penalties  for  misbehavior  at  musters.  Further  urging  by 
the  governor,  in  the  year  1740,  resulted  in  nothing. 

In  1744,  during  the  third  intercolonial  war,  the  gov- 
ernor received  instructions  from  the  home  government  to 
put  the  militia  in  the  best  condition  possible.  He  accord- 
ingly pointed  out  to  the  Assembly  that  the  old  law  was 
extremely  defective,  and  declared  that  it  was  absolutely 
necessary  to  make  the  militia  more  serviceable.  The 
lower  house  thereupon  appointed  a  committee  to  consider 
what  was  necessary.  And  in  its  report  that  committee 
recommended  that  the  power  of  the  captains  be  increased  ; 
that   conviction  for  non-attendance  at  musters  be  made 

1  U.  H.  J.,  August  3,  4,  and  5,  1732.       2  Ibid.,  March  16,  1732-33. 


286  MARYLAND   AS    A    PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

easier ;  that  the  constable  of  the  hundred  be  enabled  by  a 
warrant  under  the  hand  of  any  two  field  officers  to  compel 
a  delinquent  to  appear  and  answer  the  complaint  of  his 
officers;  and  that  the  field  officers  be  obliged  to  hold  a 
court-martial  at  least  once  a  year  on  a  certain  day  at 
the  courthouse  of  each  county.1 

But  the  house  did  nothing  with  the  recommendation  of 
this  committee.  Two  days  after  the  report  had  been  pre- 
sented, Governor  Bladen  laid  before  the  house  a  paragraph 
of  a  letter  from  Philadelphia,  together  with  a  message  in 
which  he  said  that  he  hoped  the  example  of  a  neighboring 
colony,  which,  from  its  principles  of  religion,  had  long  per- 
sisted in  refusing  to  provide  for  its  own  defence,  but  now 
so  thoroughly  convinced  of  its  danger  that  it  appeared 
to  be  actuated  by  the  principles  of  self-preservation,  might 
have  some  effect  on  those  whom  he  was  addressing.  But 
whether  the  representatives  of  the  people  of  Maryland 
would  act  upon  the  same  principles  or  rather  choose  to  dis- 
tinguish themselves  from  all  the  neighboring  colonies,  and 
indeed  the  rest  of  mankind,  by  neglecting  the  necessary 
means  of  their  safety,  he  left  it  to  their  judgment  and 
conscience  to  decide.2 

The  lower  house  gave  this  message  little  attention 
except  to  resolve  that  it  contained  oblique  and  unkind 
reflections  on  the  conduct  of  its  members.  Yet  the  execu- 
tive pursued  the  unwise  course  still  further.  For  many 
years  the  governor  and  council  had  made  no  use  of  that 
clause  in  the  militia  act  which  empowered  them  to  levy  a 
sum  not  exceeding  fifty  thousand  pounds  of  tobacco  in  any 
one  year  for  the  payment  of  small  charges.  But  now, 
after  the  prorogation  of  this  Assembly,  they  proceeded  to 
levy  a  tax  of  one  pound  of  tobacco  per  poll,  for  which 
there  was  apparently  no  other  motive  than  mere  spite 
i  L.  H.  J.,  May  31,  1744.  2  Ibid.,  June  2,  1744. 


MILITARY    AFFAIRS  287 

against  the  lower  house.  Nothing  could  have  more  effec- 
tively defeated  the  attempt  to  obtain  a  better  militia  law 
than  such  an  abuse  of  power.  That  •  abuse  produced  a 
still  greater  effect.  From  that  time  the  lower  house  not 
only  refused  to  amend  the  old  militia  law,  but  pretended 
that  that  law  had  expired  in  the  year  1725.  They  said 
the  law  of  1715  was  a  temporary  one,  that  the  law  of  1719, 
which  continued  it,  was  also  temporary,  and  that,  there- 
fore, the  act  of  1722,  which  both  amended  and  continued 
it,  was  not  intended  to  continue  it  for  a  longer  time  than 
had  the  acts  of  1715  and  1719.  Although  this  could  have 
been  nothing  but  a  pretence,  such  an  attitude  of  the  lower 
house  did  not  fail  to  make  the  militia  force  still  weaker 
than  it  had  been. 

The  concluding  sentences  of  the  governor's  last  message 
in  the  controversy  at  this  time  are  sufficient  to  show  the 
spirit  that  had  been  awakened.  He  said  :  "  It  is  really  a 
pity  your  earnestness  to  deprive  the  province  of  a  perpet- 
ual law  for  ordering  the  militia  in  its  defence,  and  to 
divest  the  government  of  a  power  to  raise  fifty  thousand 
pounds  of  tobacco  in  a  year,  should  engage  your  house  to 
use  so  much  time  and  paper  in  order  to  confound  the  sense 
of  yourselves  and  everybody  else  on  so  plain  a  point  as 
the  perpetuity  of  the  present  militia  law,  ...  I  am  deter- 
mined with  the  advice  of  the  council  to  put  the  same  in 
execution  in  all  its  parts  as  often  as  occasion  requires,  till 
.1  am  satisfied  by  some  better  reasons  that  the  law  of  1715 
has  been  expired  ever  since  1725,  contrary  to  the  common 
sense  which  I  am  master  of." * 

During  Governor  Sharpe's  administration,  even  in  the 
midst  of  the  fourth  intercolonial  war,  the  lower  house  con- 
tinued to  intimate  that  the  law  was  not  in  force  ;  and  the 
several  attempts  of  even  a  man  like  Sharpe  to  obtain  a 

1  L.  H.  J.,  September  28,  1745. 


288         MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

militia  law  like  those  in  force  in  the  northern  colonies 
found  little  favor.  In  1756  Sharpe  wrote  to  Secretary 
Calvert  as  follows:  "I  am  sure  the  situation  of  affairs 
in  America,  and  the  circumstances  of  this  and  the  neighbor- 
ing provinces  in.particular,  make  a  good  militia  law  exceed- 
ingly expedient.  But  the  people  in  general  are  very  averse 
to  every  law  of  that  sort,  and  their  sense,  I  doubt  not,  will 
determine  their  Representatives.  Mr.  Hammond,  who  is 
a  leading  man  in  the  house,  says  he  thinks  it  would  become 
them  to  recommend  it  to  the  people  to  provide  themselves 
with  arms  and  to  learn  to  use  them,  but  that  every  step 
farther  than  that  would  abridge  the  liberty  to  which  as 
Englishmen  they  have  an  inviolable  right."  * 

Not  until  the  people  had  come  to  feel  their  supremacy 
over  the  lord  proprietor,  not  until  it  had  become  possible 
to  keep  a  militia  force  under  their  own  control,  and  when, 
also?  it  was  felt  that  such  a  force  was  needed  to  resist  the 
oppression  of  the  mother  country,  did  the  people  of  Mary- 
land come  to  think  that  a  strong  militia  force  would  be  a 
protection  and  not  a  hindrance  to  the  cause  of  liberty. 
But  when  that  time  did  come  they  were  as  enthusiastic  in 
its  favor  as  they  had  formerly  been  determined  against  it. 
Thus,  in  1774,  the  provincial  Congress  was  unanimous  in 
the  following  resolution  :  "  That  a  well-regulated  militia, 
composed  of  gentlemen,  freeholders,  and  other  freemen  is 
the  natural  strength  and  only  stable  security  of  a  free 
government,  and  that  such  militia  will  relieve  our  mother, 
country  from  any  expense  in  our  protection  and  defence, 
will  obviate  the  pretence  of  a  necessity  for  taxing  us  on 
that  account,  and  render  it  unnecessary  to  keep  any  stand- 
ing army  (ever  dangerous  to  liberty)  in  this  province. 
And,  therefore,  it  is  recommended  to  such  of  the  said 
inhabitants  of  this  province,  as  are  from  sixteen  to  fifty 

1  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  I,  p.  491. 


MILITARY   AFFAIRS  289 

years  of  age,  to  form  themselves  into  companies  of  sixty- 
eight  men ;  to  choose  a  Captain,  two  Lieutenants,  an 
Ensign,  four  Sergeants,  four  Corporals,  and  one  Drummer 
for  each  company  ;  and  use  their  utmost  endeavors  to 
make  themselves  masters  of  the  military  exercise  ;  that 
each  man  be  provided  with  a  good  firelock  and  bayonet 
fitted  thereon,  half  a  pound  of  powder,  two  pounds  of 
lead  with  a  powder  horn  and  bag  for  ball,  and  be  in 
readiness  to  act  on  any  emergency."  J 

In  accordance  with  that  resolution  it  was  not  long 
before  companies  were  formed  in  the  several  towns  and 
hundreds.  A  royalist  observer  wrote  at  the  time  as  fol- 
lows :  "  The  inhabitants  of  this  province  are  incorpo- 
rated under  military  regulations  and  apply  the  greater 
part  of  their  time  to  the  different  branches  of  discipline. 
In  Annapolis  there  are  now  two  companies  ;  in  Baltimore, 
seven.  And  in  every  district  of  this  province  the  major- 
ity of  the  people  are  actually  under  arms.  Almost  every 
hat  is  decorated  with  a  cockade."2 

If  the  defective  laws  for  training  the  militia  were  a 
source  of  weakness  to  the  executive,  the  meagre  supply 
of  arms  and  ammunition  and  the  nature  of  the  controversy 
arising  with  respect  thereto  not  only  directly  increased 
that  weakness,  but  added  to  the  hostility  between  the 
lord  proprietor  and  the  people.  From  the  first,  the 
requirements  of  the  governor  that  everybody  able  to 
bear  arms  should  provide  himself  with  arms  and  ammuni- 
tion were  not  well  complied  with.  In  1664  it  was  stated, 
in  the  preamble  to  an  act  of  assembly,  that  the  province 
was  in  great  danger  because  of  the  negligence  of  its 
inhabitants  in  not  providing  themselves  with  sufficient 
arms  and  ammunition.  The  same  act,  therefore,  provided 
for  levying  a  tax  of  one  thousand  pounds  of  tobacco  in 

1  Maryland  Gazette,  December  8,  1774.  2  Eddis,  p.  216. 

u 


290  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

order  to  help  remove  the  danger.  Again,  two  years  later, 
the  lower  house  voted  that  for  protection  from  the  Indians 
it  was  necessary  that  each  county  should  have  a  magazine 
supplied  with  certain  arms  and  ammunition  ;  and  steps 
were  taken  toward  that  end. 

The  next  action  in  this  matter  was  taken  in  1671,  when, 
as  a  result  of  shifting  the  responsibility  for  a  supply  of 
arms  and  ammunition  from  the  people  to  the  lord  proprie- 
tor, a  cause  of  complaint  against  the  latter  originated. 
For  it  was  in  that  year  that  the  act  was  passed  for 
giving  the  lord  proprietor  the  two-shilling  duty  on  con- 
dition that  he  accept  tobacco  at  twopence  per  pound  in 
payment  for  his  quit-rents,  and  on  condition,  also,  that 
one-half  the  duty  "  be  employed  toward  the  maintaining 
a  constant  magazine  with  arms  and  ammunition  for  the 
defence  of  the  province  and  defraying  other  necessary 
charges  of  government."1  On  two  occasions  it  appears 
that  the  lord  proprietor,  Cecilius,  urged  his  son  and  gov- 
ernor, Charles,  to  make  the  needed  provision  for  arms 
and  ammunition.  In  his  first  reply  the  governor  simply 
stated  that  he  would  do  so  if  sufficient  provision  could  be 
made  out  of  the  quit-rents.  But  one  year  later  he  wrote 
that  he  had  sent  for  250  muskets,  and  gave  his  assurance 
that  he  would  soon  take  such  action  with  respect  to  the 
matter  that  the  lord  proprietor  would  have  no  reason  to 
chide  nor  the  people  to  complain.2  And  by  1678  a  small 
supply  had  been  provided  for  each  of  the  several  counties. 

But  the  act  for  the  duty  of  two  shillings  reduced  the  value 
of  quit-rents  nearly  one-half,  and  therefore  gave  the  gov- 
ernment no  liberal  support.  Moreover,  under  the  condi- 
tions then  existing,  Charles  Calvert  was  by  no  means  the 
man  to  make  unnecessarily  large  expenditures  for  such 
means  of  defence.     A  growing  opposition  availed   itself 

1  Supra,  p.  79.  2  Calvert  Papers,  No.  1,  p.  290. 


MILITARY   AFFAIRS  291 

of  every  opportunity  to  make  charges  against  him.  Con- 
sequently, at  the  time  of  Bacon's  rebellion  in  Virginia, 
it  was  a  general  complaint  in  Maryland,  as  well  as  in 
Virginia,  that  provision  for  defence  had  been  grievously 
neglected  ; x  and  after  the  Revolution  of  1689  one  of  the 
charges  against  the  lord  proprietor  was  that  he  had  not 
provided  each  county  with  a  public  magazine  sufficient 
for  defence,  as  he  was  required  by  law  to  do,  and  paid 
therefore  "at  least  £2000  sterling  per  annum."2  But  the 
unreasonableness  of  the  people  could  not  have  been  less 
in  degree  than  the  oppression  of  the  lord  proprietor,  if 
they  expected  him  to  make  any  large  expenditure  for  arms 
and  ammunition  out  of  his  income  from  that  duty. 

Upon  the  establishment  of  the  royal  government  the 
Assembly  gave  one-half  of  the  two-shilling  duty  for 
the  governor's  support,  while  for  a  fund  for  arms  and 
ammunition  the  same  Assembly  endeavored  to  appro- 
priate a  part  of  the  lord  proprietor's  tonnage  duty.  But 
the  crown  soon  directed  that  the  proprietor  should  not 
be  deprived  of  that  duty.3  A  few  years  later,  also,  the 
crown  further  directed  that  threepence  of  the  twelve- 
pence  duty  for  the  governor's  support  should  be  used  for 
the  purchase  of  arms  and  ammunition,  and  that  fund,  thus 
fixed  by  order  of  the  crown,  remained  unchanged  to  the 
end  of  the  period  of  royal  government.4 

Two  years  after  the  restoration  of  the  proprietary 
government,  the  new  revenue  law  for  the  support  of  gov- 
ernment and  the  payment  of  quit-rents  made  express 
provision  for  the  threepence  duty  for  arms  and  ammuni- 
tion. That  duty  was  therefore  raised  until  the  tempo- 
rary revenue  law  of  1717  expired  in  1733.  Yet,  in  1729, 
the  lower  house  began  to  make  inquiry  into  the  applica- 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1667  to  1687-88,  pp.  184-136. 
2 Ibid.,  1687-88  to  1693,  p.  216,      »  Supra,  p.  90.      *  U.  H.  J.,  May  12, 1701. 


292         MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

tion  that  was  made  of  it ;  and  in  1732  the  same  house, 
by  a  vote  of  twenty-two  to  eighteen,  resolved  that  the 
said  duty  should  be  applied  as  the  governor  and  the  two 
houses  of  Assembly  should  think  tit.1 

After  the  temporary  revenue  law  had  expired  in  1733, 
revenue  for  the  support  of  the  governor  was  collected 
according  to  the  perpetual  law  of  1704.  As  threepence 
of  the  twelvepence  under  the  perpetual  law  had  been 
used  for  the  purchase  of  arms  and  ammunition,  the  ques- 
tion may  arise  why  the  lower  house  did  not  at  this  time 
insist  that  the  same  proportion  of  that  duty  should  again  be 
used  for  the  purpose.  But  it  should  be  remembered  that 
at  the  time  the  perpetual  law  was  suspended  the  hogsheads 
were  enlarged  enough  to  cause  the  duty  for  the  support  of 
the  governor  to  be  increased  threepence  ;  and  that  the 
perpetual  law  was  in  force  had  not  yet  been  denied. 

The  question  of  passing  an  act  for  no  other  purpose 
than  to  continue  to  raise  the  threepence  duty  therefore 
stood  at  this  time  on  its  own  merits.  But  the  lower  house 
found  that  a  large  amount  raised  by  this  duty  had  not  yet 
been  expended  ;  and  so,  in  spite  of  the  governor's  urging, 
no  bill  was  passed  in  1733  for  continuing  it.  One  year 
later,  however,  the  governor  again  laid  the  matter  before 
the  Assembly ; 2  and  this  time  the  lower  house  passed 
a  bill  which  directed  that  the  money  should  be  disposed 
of  by  the  governor  and  both  houses,  instead  of  by  the 
governor  and  council.  But  when  the  upper  house  objected 
to  such  a  provision  for  disposing  of  the  money,  the  lower 
house  yielded,  and  the  bill  became  a  law. 

The  lower  house  nevertheless  continued  to  call  for 
accounts,  and  to  examine  into  the  condition  of  arms  on 
hand,  and  by  1739  several  other  disputes  had  caused  that 
house  to   become  quite   unreasonable.       In  that  year  it 

i  L.  H.  J.,  August  5,  1732.  2  U.  H.  J.,  March  20,  1734-35. 


MILITARY   AFFAIRS  293 

began  to  contend  that  the  lord  proprietor  was  not  justly 
entitled  to  the  fourteen-pence  tonnage  duty,  that  the  per- 
petual revenue  law  of  1704  was  no  longer  in  force,  and 
that,  if  it  were  in  force,  threepence  of  that  duty  should 
be  used  for  the  purchase  of  arms  and  ammunition.1  More- 
over, the  amount  on  hand  had  increased  ;  and  the  house 
at  least  pretended  that  a  considerable  sum  was  unac- 
counted for.  As  a  consequence  of  these  several  condi- 
tions, after  the  governor  had  stated  that  he  thought  his 
accounts  must  have  been  satisfactory,  after  he  had  in  the 
most  earnest  manner  urged  the  renewal  of  the  law,  and 
after  the  upper  house  had  endeavored  to  show  how  the 
passage  of  such  a  bill,  at  a  time  when  war  was  threatening 
in  Europe,  so  nearly  concerned  the  honor  and  preserva- 
tion of  Maryland,  the  lower  house  gave  to  the  upper  house 
its  view  of  the  matter  in  the  following  words:- "If  the 
honor  and  preservation  of  this  part  of  his  Majesty's 
Dominions  be  so  nearly  concerned  as  you  are  pleased  to 
say,  in  the  threepence  act  for  arms  and  ammunition,  we 
cannot  see  how  those  who  have  had  the  disposition  of  the 
money  hitherto  raised  for  that  use  can  acquit  themselves 
for  not  applying  it  to  the  purposes  for  which  it  was  raised. 
The  uncertainty  as  to  whether  there  should  be  peace  or 
war  in  Europe  having  subsisted  for  some  time,  and  there 
now  being  the  sum  of  £2250-11-2  sterling  and  £  34-1 3- 
7|  current  gold  in  bank,  arising  from  that  duty,  besides 
upwards  of  .£2500  sterling  unaccounted  for  in  any  man- 
ner, we  have,  as  we  think,  justly  concluded  that  his  Excel- 
lency and  your  honors  have  been  of  the  opinion  either  that 
arms  and  ammunition  were  useless  to  the  province,  or 
that  there  is  a  sufficient  stock  already  provided,  otherwise 
that  you  would  never  have  neglected  so  essential  a  part  of 
your  duty  as  in  the  case  of  laying  out  that   money,  had 

1  L.  H.  J.,  June  9,  1739. 


294         MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

you  thought  it  necessary  for  the  safety  of  the  people.  .  .  . 
And  further,  inasmuch  as  his  Lordship  hath  possessed 
himself  of  a  considerable  annual  sum,  amounting  to  at 
least  £2200,  arising  on  the  shipping  trading  into  and 
staple  export  of  this  province,  without  any  law  that 
appears  to  us  to  levy  the  same,  and  which,  were  it  legal 
to  raise,  was  intended  to  support  the  government  here, 
and  particularly  to  supply  a  magazine  with  arms  and 
ammunition,  we  do  not  think  the  revival  of  that  law  at 
present  necessary."  1 

But  the  duration  of  the  existing  law  respecting  arms  and 
ammunition  was  to  terminate  only  with  the  end  of  the  next 
session  of  assembly ;  and  a  meeting  of  the  Assembly  was 
not  counted  as  a  session  unless  at  least  one  act  was 
passed.  The  upper  house,  therefore,  as  a  council  of  state, 
advised  the  governor  to  withhold  his  assent  from  every 
bill  passed  by  the  two  houses  at  this  meeting.  Hence, 
contrary  to  the  will  of  the  lower  house,  the  threepence 
duty  continued  to  be  collected ;  and  the  governor  at- 
tempted to  justify  the  means  taken  to  win  the  victory  by 
charging  the  lower  house  with  acting  from  low  motives, 
and  contrary  to  the  desires  of  the  better  element  of  the 
people.  Thus,  just  before  proroguing  the  Assembly,  he 
answered  the  charges  of  the  lower  house  with  respect  to 
the  money  in  the  bank  and  the  money  unaccounted  for  in 
such  reproachful  words  as  the  following :  "  I  cannot  help 
saying  that  these  are  such  low  and  mean  aspersions,  and 
so  absolutely  without  the  least  foundation,  that  they  must 
either  be  allowed  to  manifest  a  strong  inclination  to  throw 
dirt  or  a  desire  to  give  some  color  to  the  violence  of  your 
proceedings,  which  you  cannot  but  already  begin  to  see 
has  given  offence  to  many  of  the  best  and  wisest  men  in  the 
Province,  who  I  am  persuaded  will  be  daily  more  and  more 

iL.  H.  J.,  June  8,  1739. 


MILITARY    AFFAIRS  295 

convinced  that  violent  personal  malice  and  hatred  have  been 
stronger  motives  to  your  said  proceedings  than  any  true 
protestant  English  spirit  for  the  good  of  your  country."1 

The  great  majority  of  the  people,  however,  undoubtedly 
supported  the  action  of  their  representatives.  Although 
the  next  year  those  representatives  passed  a  bill  for  con- 
tinuing the  threepence  duty,  yet  that  bill  called  for  very 
strict  accounts.  It  also  provided  that  money  remaining  in 
the  hands  of  the  treasurers  after  a  fixed  time  should  be 
paid  out  as  both  houses  might  direct ;  and  it  provided  that 
the  act  should  continue  only  until  September  29,  1741.2 

The  upper  house  rejected  this  bill.  Thereupon  the 
lower  house  —  after  pointing  out  that  the  principal  reason 
for  that  rejection  was  because  the  bill  had  not  been  made 
to  continue  for  a  certain  time  and  to  the  end  of  the  next 
session  —  proceeded  to  tell  how  dear  experience  had  taught 
their  body  the  ill  consequence  of  making  money  laws  to 
terminate  with  a  session.  They  said  that  the  effect  of 
such  a  termination  was  to  make  a  temporary  law  perpetual, 
or,  at  least,  to  make  it  continue  so  long  as  any  one  branch 
of  the  legislature  desired  it.  They  complained  that,  because 
the  existing  law  respecting  arms  and  ammunition  contained 
such  a  provision  for  its  termination,  the  province  had  been 
deprived  of  a  session  for  nearly  three  years  ;  that  during 
those  years  the  Assembly  had  been  called  and  prorogued 
or  dissolved  from  year  to  year,  the  country  burdened  with 
immense  charges  and  oppressions  daily  experienced  with- 
out an  opportunity  for  redress ;  and  that  the  purpose  of 
the  upper  house  in  continuing  that  law  had  been  to  drive 
them  into  things  which  they  thought  inconsistent  with  the 
interest  of  the  province.  Furthermore,  the  lower  house 
again  made  mention  of  how,  during  the  royal  government, 
by  order  of  the  crown,  one-fourth  of  the  duty  at  this  time 

i  L.  H.  J.,  June  11,  1739.  2  U.  H.  J.,  May  7,  1740. 


296         MARYLAND   AS   A    PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

being  collected  for  the  governor's  support  was  then  used 
for  arms  and  ammunition.  They  pointed  out  how  the 
British  Parliament  secured  its  annual  sessions  by  giving 
for  only  one  year  at  a  time  the  duty  most  essential  to  the 
support  of  the  government.  Then  they  asked :  "  In  our 
present  situation  where  his  Lordship  takes  the  money 
for  the  support  of  government  under  color  of  a  perpetual 
law,  and  settles  officers'  fees  by  ordinance  or  proclamation, 
what  have  the  people  left  them  but  this  one  bill  to  procure 
them  frequent  assemblies  ?  .  .  .  And  should  ever  the 
Province  be  so  unhappy  as  to  be  ruled  by  a  Proprietary 
or  Governor  who  should  aim  at  arbitrary  power  and  oppress 
the  people,  what  remedy  could  they  have  when  no  means 
are  left  them  of  procuring  assemblies  ?  How  could  ag- 
grievances  be  inquired  into,  oppressions  and  extortions  sup- 
pressed, new  laws  made  or  old  ones  revived  ?  Would 
not  such  a  Proprietary  or  Governor,  as  he  has  nothing  to 
ask  of  an  assembly,  keep  the  people  always  without  one  ?  " 
Finally,  these  representatives  of  the  people  said  to  the 
representatives  of  the  proprietor,  "  Our  duty  obliges  us 
to  take  care  of  the  Province  in  every  respect,  and  not 
while  we  are  making  provision  against  enemies  abroad 
leave  it  a  prey  to  those  at  home  "  and  "  We  are,  while  we 
have  the  honor  to  represent  the  people  of  Maryland, 
firmly  determined  never  to  assent  to  any  law  of  that  kind 
with  such  an  indefinite  determination  as  you  contend  for, 
and  we  hope  when  we  are  discharged  of  the  trust  they 
will  always  find  representatives  who  shall  firmly  adhere  to 
the  same  just  resolutions."1 

Both  houses  at  last  agreed  to  a  conference,  and  at  that 
conference  it  was  arranged  that  the  duty  for  arms  and  am- 
munition should  be  sixpence  per  hogshead,  and  that  the 
duration  of  the  law  should  be  limited  to  three  years. 

*L.  H.  J.,  May  17,  1740. 


MILITARY   AFFAIRS  297 

But  a  new  quarrel  then  arose.  The  upper  house  re- 
fused to  proceed  to  business  until  the  lower  house  had 
sent  up  the  supply  bill  for  his  Majesty's  service  and  the 
bill  for  arms  and  ammunition,  both  of  which  had  been 
agreed  upon  in  conference.  But  the  lower  house  feared 
that  if  those  two  bills  were  first  passed,  the  upper  house 
might  then  so  amend  some  of  the  bills  that  were  favorites 
with  the  people  as  to  fix  their  duration  to  a  certain  day 
only,  and  not  to  the  end  of  a  session  as  formerly.  The 
upper  house  held  that  the  most  important  bills  should 
have  precedence,  while  the  lower  house  held  that  those 
bills  which  had  already  been  before  the  upper  house  for 
three  weeks  should  have  precedence.  In  this  quarrel  the 
governor  took  a  part.  Both  the  governor  and  the  upper 
house  felt  that  a  concession  to  the  lower  house  in  this 
matter  would  have  the  plain  tendency  to  render  the  upper 
house  not  only  a  ridiculous  but  a  useless  branch  of  the 
legislature,  since  it  would  make  their  submission  abso- 
lutely necessary  to  whatever  the  lower  house  should  be 
pleased  to  exact  from  them.  At  the  same  time  the  lower 
house  passed  the  following  resolution :  "  That  the  upper 
house,  keeping  before  them  the  bills  sent  from  this  House 
longer  than  the  usual  and  reasonable  time  upon  any  pre- 
tence whatsoever,  is  a  dangerous  innovation  introductive 
of  many  inconveniences,  and  of  altering  the  usual  method 
of  proceeding  in  assemblies ;  and  that  threatening  this 
house  with  the  fall  of  those  laws  usually  revived  and  reen- 
acted  in  which  the  public  utility  of  the  inhabitants  is 
so  essentially  concerned  till  this  house  comply  with 
their  unreasonable  demands,  is  using  compulsory  means 
with  this  House  to  give  up  the  rights  and  privileges  of 
the  people,  and  tends  to  the  making  themselves  absolute 
and  the  Delegates  of  the  people  useless."1 

iL.  H.  J.,  June5,  1740. 


298         MARYLAND    AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

Before  this  assembly  was  prorogued  the  lower  house 
passed  the  supply  bill  for  his  Majesty's  service  in  carry- 
ing on  the  third  intercolonial  war.  As  neither  the  upper 
house  nor  the  governor  dared  to  reject  that  bill,  this  meet- 
ing of  the  Assembly  of  the  year  1740  was  made  a  session, 
and  thereby  the  law  of  1734  for  arms  and  ammunition 
expired.  But  with  it  also  expired  several  of  the  laws  that 
were  favorites  of  the  people,  and  no  new  laws  were  made 
to  take  their  place. 

The  Assembly  met  again  that  same  year,  and  the  dispute 
as  to  which  bills  should  have  precedence  again  arose. 
After  sitting  two  weeks  without  any  prospect  of  an  agree- 
ment, the  lower  house  asked  the  governor  to  prorogue  the 
Assembly.  Whereupon  the  upper  house  yielded  so  far  as 
to  send  down  some  of  the  bills  which  it  had  been  with- 
holding. But  that  house  still  retained  the  bill  for  circuit 
courts  and  a  bill  for  officers'  fees.  This  drew  from  the 
lower  house  to  the  governor  a  long  message  in  which,  after 
reviewing  the  case  from  the  beginning,  that  body  said : 
"  If  the  above  be  the  true  state  of  the  case,  who  can  blame 
the  Representatives  of  a  free  people  from  guarding  against 
a  practice  which  in  its  consequence  must  affect  their  rights 
in  their  tenderest  parts ;  which  must  render  the  House  of 
Delegates  a  name  only,  or  mere  shadow  by  depriving  them 
of  that  freedom  of  action,  that  share  in  legislation  which 
by  their  Charter  and  Birthright  the  people  are  entitled 
to,  which  must  prostitute  them  to  the  sole  power  of  an 
Upper  House  and  subject  them  at  all  times  to  the  abso- 
lute will  of  their  Governors.  .  .  .  We  therefore  conclude 
with  the  plainness  your  Excellency  desires  by  telling  you 
that  we  will  not  introduce  the  practice  of  bargaining  what 
as  British  subjects  the  people  ought  to  enjoy ;  that  the  bill 
for  6d.  per  hogshead  has  had  its  first  reading,  but  that  we 
are  determined  to  proceed  no  further  in  that  or  any  other 


MILITARY    AFFAIRS  299 

money  bill  that  may  tax  or  burthen  the  country  (those 
relating  to  his  Majesty's  service  only,  excepted)  until  we 
have  a  regular  return  of  the  long-accustomed  method  of 
proceeding  from  the  other  Branches  of  the  Legislature  with 
this  House,  and  of  all  our  useful  and  necessary  bills."  1 

After  this  message  had  been  delivered,  the  upper  house 
sent  down  as  not  passed  the  two  remaining  bills.  Al- 
though this  was  a  complete  concession  as  to  parliamentary 
procedure,  it  is  needless  to  say  it  did  not  satisfy  the  lower 
house.  No  further  progress  was  made  toward  reaching  an 
agreement  at  this  session. 

At  the  opening  of  the  session  in  the  following  year  the 
government  again  urged  that  provision  be  made  for  a  sup- 
ply of  arms  and  ammunition,  and  after  the  lower  house 
had  passed  the  favorite  expired  bills  it  passed  one  for 
military  stores.  But  that  bill  directed  that  the  duty  to 
be  imposed  should  be  paid  not  to  the  treasurers  as  formerly, 
but  to  the  speaker  of  the  lower  house,  who  with  the  money 
arising  therefrom  should  purchase  such  arms  and  other 
warlike  stores  as  the  governor  should  direct.  Further- 
more, the  bill  provided  that,  if  the  money  were  not  laid 
out  by  the  direction  of  the  governor  before  the  next  session 
of  assembly,  then  it  should  be  applied  for  defraying  the 
public  charge  as  the  lower  house  might  direct.  In  that 
bill  was  also  this  provision  ;  namely,  "  Provided  that  noth- 
ing herein  contained  shall  be  deemed  or  construed  to  ex- 
tend to  prejudice  or  take  away  any  right  or  claim  which 
the  people  of  this  Province  have  to  any  money  heretofore 
or  now  levied  by  the  Proprietor  under  color  of  the  act  of 
1704  for  the  settlement  of  a  general  revenue."  And, 
lastly,  the  act  was  to  continue  only  until  September  29, 
1742. 2     Of  course  the  upper  house  did  not  pass  the  bill. 

In  order  to  defeat  the  lower  house  in  this  contest,  and 

1  L.  H.  J.,  July  25,  1740.  *  Ibid.,  June  18,  1741. 


300         MARYLAND    AS    A   PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

prevail  upon  that  body  to  pass  a  bill  which  should  restore 
to  the  governor  and  council  their  former  power  in  the 
purchase  of  arms  and  ammunition,  the  lord  proprietor  ap- 
pointed a  new  governor  and  instructed  him  and  the  coun- 
cil to  continue  to  withhold  the  bill  for  circuit  courts,  the 
bill  for  the  recovery  of  small  debts,  and  the  bill  for  the 
relief  of  poor  debtors  till  the  bill  for  arms  and  ammuni- 
tion should  pass  the  lower  house  in  an  acceptable  form.1 
It  was  on  this  occasion,  also,  more  than  at  any  other  that 
the  lord  proprietor  endeavored  to  make  felt  his  power  as 
territorial  lord  by  authorizing  the  governor  to  pass  the 
bill  for  the  payment  of  quit-rents  on  terms  favorable  to 
the  people,  provided  the  lower  house  passed  an  acceptable 
bill  for  arms  and  ammunition.2  Then,  too,  the  third  inter- 
colonial war  being  in  progress,  after  the  home  government 
had  directed  that  the  province  should  be  put  in  the  best 
possible  condition  of  defence,  and  when  the  upper  house 
claimed  that  danger  from  the  Indians  was  threatening, 
the  governor  and  council,  in  an  address  to  the  crown 
endeavored  to  throw  all  the  blame  on  the  lower  house. 
Thus  in  that  address  they  said  in  part :  "  We  your  Maj- 
esty's most  dutiful  and  loyal  subjects,  the  Lieutenant  Gov- 
ernor and  Council  of  the  said  province,  most  humbly  beg 
leave  to  approach  your  Majesty  with  this  representation 
of  the  difficulties  and  obstacles  we  have  met  with  in  our 
endeavors  to  comply  with  these  orders  (to  put  the  prov- 
ince in  the  best  posture  of  defence)  from  those  who  being 
the  representatives  of  the  People  in  Assembly  either  from 
a  mistaken  notion  of  their  duty  to  your  Majesty  and  the 
true  interest  of  their  Country,  or  from  private  and  popular 
views  inconsistent  with  both,  have  for  some  years  past 
made  opposition  and  clamors  against  this  government  and 
the  administration  thereof  their  principal  rule  and  direc- 

i  C.  R.,  March  26,  1743.  2  Supra,  p.  84. 


MILITARY    AFFAIRS  301 

tion  in  all  their  consultation  and  debates.  .  .  .  The 
Lower  House  of  Assembly  grasping  at  power  in  every 
instance  ever  since  the  year  1738  under  various  pretences 
have  refused  to  raise  that  fund  which  has  been  from  time 
to  time  continued  for  above  twenty  years  for  supplying 
this  Province  with  arms  and  ammunition  in  such  manner 
as  hath  been  always  before  practised,  and  in  the  manage- 
ment whereof  no  just  objection  could  be  made  to  the  Gov- 
ernor and  Council,  with  whom  the  disposition  was  always 
intrusted  for  the  use  to  which  it  was  appropriated  by  the 
act.  But  when  the  present  Lower  House  was  this  session 
pressed  by  an  argument  of  the  alarming  attempt  of  an 
invasion  of  Great  Britain,  and  the  then  imminent  danger 
of  a  war  with  France,  as  well  as  by  the  order  and  direction 
of  their  Excellencies,  the  Lords  Justices,  they  passed  a 
bill  for  a  provision  of  arms  and  ammunition  for  defence  of 
the  province  almost  of  the  same  import  with  two  bills 
in  the  two  preceding  sessions,  and  which  they  knew  had 
been  before  rejected,  since  they  could  not  be  passed  with- 
out a  most  severe  reflection  on  the  Lord  Proprietary 
and  Government."1 

But  in  return  for  such  a  representation  to  the  crown, 
the  lower  house  more  and  more  pressed  their  objection  to 
the  lord  proprietor's  taking  to  his  own  use,  under  color  of 
law,  the  twelvepence  duty  —  a  part  of  which,  they  contin- 
ued to  say,  when  legally  raised,  had  been  applied  to  the 
purchase  of  arms  and  ammunition.  The  bill  for  the  pay- 
ment of  quit-rents  was  not  sufficiently  popular  to  be  of 
much  force  ;  and  after  the  governor  had  declared  that  the 
bill  would  be  lost  unless  a  fund  were  provided  for  arms 
and  ammunition,  the  lower  house  by  a  vote  of  thirty-two 
to  eighteen  resolved,  in  effect,  to  do  nothing  further  with 
respect  to  the  desired  fund.     The  new  governor,  Bladen, 

i  C.  R.,  June  5,  1744. 


302         MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

was  much  less  qualified  to  engage  in  such  a  contest  than 
was  the  old  governor,  Ogle,  and  the  lower  house  prized 
victory  in  this  contest  far  more  highly  than  they  did  those 
three  favorite  laws. 

Moreover,  by  1746,  instead  of  support  coming  from  the 
crown  to  the  lord  proprietor  and  his  government,  some 
members  of  the  government  party  seem  to  have  suggested 
to  the  lord  proprietor  that  it  might  be  advisable  to  accept 
for  a  time  the  bill  for  arms  and  ammunition  in  the  form  of- 
fered by  the  lower  house,  lest,  otherwise,  the  people  should 
justify  themselves  to  the  crown.1  In  response  to  that 
suggestion  the  lord  proprietor  expressed  a  readiness  to 
grant  to  the  lower  house  a  share  in  the  disposal  of  the 
money  that  should  be  raised  by  the  bill  in  question.  But 
the  war  ended  before  any  concession  was  made  ;  and  in 
the  year  1747,  when  Ogle  again  became  governor  and  the 
inspection  act  was  passed,  the  good  feeling  was  so  general 
that  the  lower  house  passed  the  bill  in  nearly  the  same 
form  as  that  in  which  it  had  formerly  existed  as  a  law.2 
However,  its  duration  was  limited  to  one  year,  and  after 
reviving  and  continuing  it  but  once  it  was  suffered  to 
expire  September  29,  1749.  When  the  new  governor, 
Sharpe,  was  appointed,  he  was  instructed  to  revive  the 
old  practice  of  refusing  to  pass  the  three  bills  above  men- 
tioned until  the  lower  house  should  pass  the  bill  for  arms 
and  ammunition.  That  instruction  was,  however,  this  time 
so  conditioned  as  to  allow  the  governor  and  the  upper 
house  to  pass  those  three  bills  without  the  bill  for  arms 
and  ammunition  if  they  thought  it  "  expedient  and  abso- 
lutely necessary  for  the  benefit,  utility,  and  well  being  of 
the  inhabitants  of  Maryland. "  3     And  in  accordance  with 

1  Dulany  Papers  ;  Gilmore  Papers.  2  Supra,  p.  117. 

8  C.  R.,  October  17,  1753  ;  Calvert  Papers,  private  instructions  ;  see 
also  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  I,  p.  12. 


MILITARY   AFFAIRS  303 

this  condition  those  three  bills  were  passed  without  that 
for  arms  and  ammunition  ever  again  becoming  a  law. 

In  the  controversy  over  this  one  bill,  therefore,  the 
upper  house  learned  how  useless  it  was  to  try  to  drive  the 
lower  house  by  attempting  to  deprive  the  people  of  a  ses- 
sion of  assembly.  The  upper  house  yielded  in  the  ques- 
tion of  parliamentary  procedure.  The  use  which  the 
proprietor  made  of  his  power  as  territorial  lord  availed 
him  nothing.  In  the  relations  with  the  crown  the  people 
showed  themselves  to  have  the  advantage  ;  and  when 
there  was  left  to  the  government  no  other  lever  than  the 
bill  for  circuit  courts,  the  bill  for  the  recovery  of  small  debts, 
.and  the  bill  for  the  relief  of  poor  debtors,  its  case  was  hope- 
less. This  was  a  fit  series  of  victories  for  the  lower  house 
to  add  to  its  victory  in  the  contest  over  English  statutes.1 

The  occasions  for  defence  of  the  province  by  means  of 
fortifications  arose  from  three  sources  ;  namely,  that  the 
coast  should  be  protected  against  foreign  enemies,  that 
the  northern  border  should  be  guarded  on  account  of  the 
boundary  dispute  with  the  Penns,  and  that  the  western 
frontier  should  be  made  secure  against  the  Indians.  But 
the  need  for  these  defences  was  seldom  great  ;  and  the 
people  showed  themselves  no  more  willing  to  make  contri- 
butions for  such  fortifications  than  they  did  to  subject 
themselves  to  a  strong  militia  law. 

Just  as  the  question  of  arms  and  ammunition  was  closely 
connected  with  that  of  the  twelvepence  duty  on  tobacco, 
so  also  the  question  of  coast  fortification  was  connected 
with  the  fourteen-pence  tonnage  duty.  Among  the  bills 
before  the  Assembly  in  the  year  1637-38  —  probably  one 
of  those  sent  over  by  the  lord  proprietor  —  was  one  for 
the  erection  of  a  fort  ;  and  although  that  bill  did  not 
become  a  law,  a  fort  was  soon  erected  at  St.  Inigoes,  near 

1  Supra,  p.  277. 


304        MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

St.  Mary's,  and  not  far  from  the  mouth  of  the  Potomac.  In 
1650  an  act  was  passed  for  rebuilding  and  garrisoning  that 
fort.  The  preamble  stated  that  the  purpose  of  the  act 
was  to  guard  against  any  indignity  to  the  lord  proprietor 
or  any  abuse  to  the  people  through  the  insolence  and 
pride  of  ill-minded  people  trading  with  the  province.  The 
act  provided  that  every  five  inhabitants  of  the  province 
should  furnish  and  support  one  man  to  assist  in  the  work 
of  rebuilding.  It  authorized  the  governor  to  press  six  men 
with  victuals  and  the  necessary  ammunition  into  the  said 
fort  during  the  time  of  shipping.  It  provided  that  one 
thousand  pounds  of  tobacco  should  be  raised  by  a  poll  tax 
for  paying  a  gunner.  It  directed  that  for  trading  with  the 
colony  every  English  or  foreign  vessel,  having  a  deck  or 
deck  flush  fore  and  aft,  should  pay  a  duty  of  one-half 
pound  of  powder  and  two  pounds  of  shot,  or  the  equiva- 
lent in  value,  on  every  ton  burden  for  the  use  of  the  fort 
or  any  other  necessary  or  general  uses  to  be  employed  as 
the  governor  should  see  cause  or  think  fit. 

In  1661  the  above  act  was  superseded  by  a  perpetual 
act  that  increased  the  duty  per  ton  to  one-half  pound  of 
powder  and  three  pounds  of  shot,  or  the  equivalent  in 
value,  and  made  it  payable  to  the  lord  proprietor  and  his 
heirs  without  specifying  any  use  to  which  it  should  be 
applied.  In  order  to  answer  the  end  mentioned  in  the 
preamble  of  the  act  of  1650,  this  last  act  provided  that  mas- 
ters or  commanders  of  the  vessels  should,  within  ten  days 
of  their  arrival  within  the  province,  give  bond  of  three 
thousand  pounds  of  tobacco  to  observe  all  acts  and  orders 
of  the  province  during  their  stay  therein  ;  and  if  any 
such  master  or  commander  attempted  to  strike  or  punish 
any  inhabitant  of  the  province  while  on  board  the  vessel, 
then  such  master  or  commander  was  to  forfeit  four  thou- 
sand pounds  of  tobacco. 


MILITARY   AFFAIRS  305 

The  kind  of  duty  mentioned,  as  well  as,  in  less  measure, 
the  comparison  of  these  two  acts,  give  some  support  to  the 
claim  of  the  people  that  the  duty  imposed  by  the  act  of 
1661  was  intended  only  for  the  purpose  of  fortifying 
ports.  Yet,  if  such  was  originally  the  clear  intention, 
then  the  representatives  of  the  people  at  that  time  must 
have  been  unreasonably  confident  that  the  lord  proprietor 
would  never  act  otherwise  than  for  the  best  welfare  of  all 
concerned.  But  however  that  may  be,  instead  of  taking 
powder  and  shot  for  arms  and  ammunition,  and  some 
money  or  tobacco  for  building  forts,  for  more  than  a 
century  the  lord  proprietor  took  for  his  own  use  a  duty 
of  fourteen  pence  per  ton. 

In  1678,  when,  in  response  to  complaints  from  the  prov- 
ince, the  home  government  inquired  of  the  lord  proprie- 
tor about  the  provision  for  defence,  he  replied,  uAs  to 
castles  and  forts  there  are  none,  so  that  if  an  enemy  should 
land  there,  he  would  not  find  any  place  wherein  to  fix 
himself."1 

No  such  reply  could  give  satisfaction  to  those  ignorant 
of  the  Maryland  coast ;  and  from  the  beginning  of  the 
royal  government  the  governor  was  instructed  from  home 
to  erect  such  fortifications  in  such  ports  as  he  and  the 
council  should  think  necessary  for  the  security  of  the 
province  ;  but  this  was  to  be  done  at  the  public  charge. 
Five  years  passed  before  much  heed  seems  to  have  been 
given  to  that  instruction.  In  1697,  when  the  governor 
proposed  to  the  lower  house  that  since  the  province  was 
so  destitute  of  fortifications  the  crown  be  asked  to  send 
a  frigate  to  keep  cruising  in  the  bay,  the  lower  house 
resolved  that  there  was  no  necessity  for  putting  the  crown 
to  such  a  charge.2     Finally,  two  years  later,  the  governor 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1667  to  1687-88,  p.  265. 
2L.  H.  J.,  May  31,  1697. 
x 


306         MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

laid  his  instruction  before  that  house.  But  on  this  oc* 
casion,  also,  the  members  of  that  body  showed  no  more 
willingness  to  expend  money  for  such  a  purpose  than  the 
lord  proprietor  had  formerly  shown.  In  fact,  it  is  difficult  to 
see  how  their  reply  can  be  so  interpreted  as  not  to  show  the 
people's  complaint  against  the  lord  proprietor  for  his  past 
neglect  with  respect  to  such  coast  defence  was  without 
adequate  ground.  For  in  that  reply  it  was  said  :  "  This 
Province  from  one  side  to  the  other  being  so  luxuriant 
in  navigable  rivers  and  so  many  capacious  harbors  and  fair 
landings,  the  land  next  the  water  being  generally  low  and 
level  with  no  banks  to  prohibit  landings,  and  the  trade  and 
shipping  of  the  Province  by  the  convenience  of  its  creeks, 
rivers,  and  harbors,  it  does  not  seem  to  us  a  thing  practi- 
cable to  erect  any  such  fortifications  or  to  restrain  ship- 
ping from  the  usual  places  of  trade  and  confine  it  to  any 
particular  harbor.  And  we  are  confident  that  if  their 
Lordships,  the  Lord  Commissioners  of  Trade  and  Planta- 
tion, did  visibly  know  this  Province,  they  would  concur 
with  us  and  further  adjudge  that  all  the  revenues  of  this 
Province  were  insignificant  to  the  erecting  of  such  desir- 
able fortifications  as  would  defend  it  or  would  be  any 
considerable  security  to  shipping  in  any  case." 1  With 
this  reply  the  question  of  coast  defence  terminated.2 

The  fortifications  erected  by  the  Marylanders  as  a'pro- 
tection  from  the  Pennsylvanians,  in  the  vicinity  of  the 
disputed  border,  were  never  strong.  In  1686  the  lord 
proprietor  ordered  that  Fort  Christiana,  which  had  for- 
merly been  built  by  the  Swedes,  should  be  taken  possession 
of.  Accordingly  that  fort  was  soon  garrisoned  by  five 
men.3  The  council  decided  that  the  expense  should  be 
defrayed  out  of   the  lord  proprietor's  revenue,  but  that 

1  L.  H.  J.,  June  30,  1699.  2  However,  see  supra,  p.  91. 

8  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1666  to  1687-88,  p.  485. 


MILITARY   AFFAIRS  307 

care  should  be  taken  to  reimburse  his  Lordship  at  the 
laying  of  the  next  public  levy  ;  and  while  it  does  not 
appear  that  the  lower  house  objected  to  this,  nothing 
further  appears  with  respect  to  the  said  fort.  In  the 
following  century  the  brave  frontiersman,  Thomas  Cresap, 
built  his  block-house  near  the  bank  of  the  Susquehanna 
in  latitude  forty.  But  about  the  year  1736  it  was  burned 
by  the  Pennsylvanians,  one  of  its  inmates  was  killed,  sev- 
eral were  wounded,  and  Cresap  and  four  others  were 
taken  prisoners.1 

In  1681  scouts  were  employed  to  range  on  the  frontier 
in  order  to  protect  the  province  from  the  Indians.  But 
no  forts  of  much  importance  were  built  for  such  a  purpose 
until  the  year  of  the  establishment  of  the  royal  govern- 
ment. By  that  time,  however,  the  northern  Indians  had 
been  so  stirred  up  by  the  French  that  the  governor  and 
council  ordered  that  a  line  of  three  forts  should  be  erected 
on  what  was  then  the  western  frontier  —  one  in  Charles 
County,  one  in  Anne  Arundel  County,  and  one  in  Balti- 
more County  near  the  falls  of  the  Patapsco.  For  erecting 
these  forts  Captain  John  Addison  and  Colonel  Nicholas 
Greenberry  were  authorized  and  empowered  to  press  and 
procure  carpenters,  ordinary  laborers,  tools,  provisions,  and 
other  necessaries.  They  were  given  assurance  from  the 
governor  and  council  that  toward  paying  for  the  same  an 
allowance  would  be  made  at  the  next  public  levy.  Each 
fort  was  to  be  in  command  of  a  captain  with  nine  English 
soldiers  and  four  Indians  who  were  to  range  all  along  the 
line.2  This  line  of  defence  may  have  been  quite  well 
kept  up  for  one  or  two  decades ;  but  early  in  the  eigh- 
teenth century  the  lower  house  deemed  such  an  expense 
unnecessary. 

1  C.  R.,  February  17,  1736. 

2  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1687-88  to  1693,  pp.  461,  478. 


308         MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

Few  other  fortifications  of  any  kind  were  erected  on 
the  western  frontier  until  the  time  of  the  last  intercolo- 
nial war,  when  that  frontier  had  receded  far  toward  the 
northwest  corner  of  the  province,  where  Fort  Frederick 
and  Fort  Cumberland  were  at  that  time  erected.  Fort 
Frederick  was  built  at  a  cost  of  upwards  of  £6000 
out  of  the  appropriation  of  £11,000  that  was  made  by 
the  Assembly  for  the  defence  of  the  frontier  soon  after 
Braddock's  defeat.  It  was  located  on  an  elevated  site 
about  one-fourth  of  a  mile  from  the  bank  of  the  Potomac 
and  about  ten  miles  above  the  mouth  of  Conococheague 
creek.  Its  form  was  quadrangular,  each  of  its  exterior 
lines  being  360  feet  in  length.  It  was  strongly  built,  its 
curtains  and  bastions  being  faced  with  a  thick  stone  wall, 
and  it  contained  barracks  sufficient  for  300  men.1 

Fort  Cumberland  was  about  seventy-five  miles  west  of 
Fort  Frederick,  and  therefore  separated  from  the  frontier 
settlers  of  Maryland  by  a  trackless  wilderness  from  sixty 
to  eighty  miles  in  extent  from  east  to  west.  It  was  orig- 
inally built  by  some  of  the  Ohio  Company  as  a  store- 
house for  their  goods,  and  was  for  a  time  garrisoned  by 
Virginia  troops.  As  a  fortification  it  was  weak,  being  a 
stockade  and  commanded  on  almost  every  side  by  circum- 
jacent hills.  Because  it  was  such  a  weak  fort,  because  it 
was  so  far  beyond  the  frontier  settlements  of  inhabitants 
under  the  protection  of  the  government  of  Maryland,  and 
because,  as  was  claimed,  the  track  of  the  Indians  in  mak- 
ing their  incursions  was  between  Fort  Frederick  and  Fort 
Cumberland,  but  out  of  the  range  of  the  latter,  the  lower 
house  refused  to  burden  the  people  with  any  expense  in 
garrisoning  it.2  In  the  year  1757  that  house  even  recom- 
mended  that   his   Majesty's    artillery    and   stores  which 

1  McMahon,  "An  Historical  View  of  the  Government  of  Maryland," 
p.  305.  2  L.  H.  J.,  December  15,  1757  ;  C.  R.,  August  23,  1756. 


MILITARY   AFFAIRS  309 

were  in  that  fort  should  be  removed  to  a  place  of  greater 
security. 

With  a  poorly  organized  and  disciplined  militia,  with 
a  scant  supply  of  arms  and  ammunition,  and  with  but 
little  defence  from  forts,  the  lord  proprietor  and  his 
government  were  all  the  more  at  the  mercy  of  the  people 
in  time  of  war,  the  expense  of  which  the  lower  house  might 
agree  to  on  whatever  conditions  they  saw  fit  to  impose. 

The  first  of  such  conditions  was  made  as  early  as  the 
year  1642,  when  by  act  of  assembly  the  governor  and 
council  were  authorized  to  press  men,  vessels,  arms,  am- 
munition, and  provisions  at  the  most  usual  rates  and  to 
charge  the  same  upon  the  inhabitants  of  the  province,  pro- 
vided such  expense  was  incurred  for  the  necessary  defence 
of  the  province  from  invasion  by  the  Indians  or  other 
enemies,  and  provided  such  expense  should  amount 
in  any  one  year  to  no  more  than  six  thousand  pounds  of 
tobacco. 

The  duration  of  the  above  act  was  limited  to  a  period 
of  three  years,  at  the  end  of  which  the  governor  had  gone 
to  Virginia  because  of  the  Claiborne  and  Ingle  rebellion. 
For  service  in  the  suppression  of  that  rebellion  Gov- 
ernor Calvert,  supported  by  Secretary  Lewger,  promised 
to  pay  soldiers  out  of  the  lord  proprietor's  personal  estate. 
The  rebellion  was  thereby  easily  suppressed.1  But  Gov- 
ernor Calvert  died  soon  after,  and  the  lord  proprietor 
denied  that  the  governor  had  had  any  authority  for  en- 
gaging his  personal  estate,  as  he  was  said  to  have  done. 
The  consequence  was  that  the  dispute  between  lord  pro- 
prietor and  people  over  this  matter  lasted  for  about  three 
years.  The  lord  proprietor  refused  to  stand  the  cost  of 
paying  those  soldiers  except  upon  terms  which  the  people 
would  not  accept.     Thereupon,  on  the  initiative  of  the 

1  Supra,  p.  20. 


310         MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY  PROVINCE 

representatives  of  the  people,  from  the  year  1650,  the  laws 
of  the  province  forbade  the  levying  of  any  subsidy,  aid, 
customs,  tax,  or  imposition  upon  the  freemen  of  Maryland 
until  after  their  consent  in  the  Assembly  had  been  first 
obtained.  Furthermore,  from  that  same  year  the  laws  of 
the  province  provided  that  in  case  the  lord  proprietor  or 
the  governor  should  at  any  time  make  war  outside  of  the 
limits  of  the  province  without  having  first  obtained  the 
consent  and  approbation  of  the  General  Assembly,  then 
the  freemen  of  the  province  should  in  no  way  be  obliged 
or  compelled  against  their  consent  to  assist  with  their 
persons  or  estates  in  the  prosecution  of  such  a  war. 
Finally,  martial  law  was  not  to  be  at  any  time  exercised 
within  the  province  except  in  camp  or  garrison. 1  About 
the  only  modification  that  was  later  made  in  these  impor- 
tant restrictions  was  that  which  allowed  the  governor  and 
council,  in  the  interval  between  sessions  of  the  Assembly, 
to  levy  a  sum  not  exceeding  fifty  thousand  pounds  of 
tobacco  in  any  one  year. 

From  the  restoration  of  the  proprietary  government,  in 
1658,  until  the  Revolution  of  1689  the  war  power  of  the 
lord  proprietor  and  governor  was  probably  stronger  than 
at  any  other  time.  Yet  during  that  period  the  hostility 
from  the  Indians  and  from  all  other  enemies  from  with- 
out caused  so  little  alarm  that  no  important  precedents 
with  respect  to  carrying  on  war  were  then  established. 
After  the  establishment  of  the  royal  government  the  prov- 
ince was  for  a  long  time  so  little  disturbed  by  enemies 
from  without  that  little  further  was  done  toward  defining 
the  war  powers  of  the  government  and  the  people  until 
the  third  intercolonial  war. 

At  the  beginning  of  that  war  the  Assembly,  in  response 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1637-38  to  1664,  p.  302. 


MILITARY   AFFAIRS  311 

to  the  request  of  the  home  government  for  assistance, 
passed  an  act   for  raising  £2562  10s.  for  that   purpose. 

But  when  it  was  desired  to  negotiate  at  Albany  a  gen- 
eral treaty  between  the  Indians  on  the  one  side  and  the 
several  colonies  on  the  other,  the  lower  house  refused  to 
incur  any  expense  therefor  until  after  the  governor  had 
invited  that  body  to  name  two  of  the  four  commissioners 
who  were  to  be  sent  to  participate  in  the  negotiation. 
Even  then  the  representatives  of  the  people  not  only 
named  those  commissioners,  but  secretly  gave  them 
instructions  under  nineteen  heads,  one  of  which  limited 
the  value  of  the  presents  to  be  given  by  Maryland  to  the 
Indians  to  £300.  It  was  only  by  accident  that  those 
instructions  became  known  to  the  governor  and  council. 
But  after  they  had  become  thus  known,  the  governor  told 
the  lower  house  that  the  prerogative  of  making  peace  or 
war  was  such  an  acknowledged  and  undoubted  right  of 
the  crown  that  neither  house  of  Parliament  had  ever  pre- 
tended to  authorize  or  instruct  any  minister  employed  in 
such  negotiation.  He  said  that  by  the  charter  of  Mary- 
land that  prerogative  had  been  delegated  to  the  lord  pro- 
prietor, and  that  therefore  he  could  not,  consistently  with 
his  duty  and  station,  commission  any  person  who  should 
think  himself  obliged  to  observe  and  pursue  any  other 
directions  than  such  as  he,  the  governor,  should  give  him. 

When  the  lower  house  was  first  called  to  account  for 
giving  such  instructions,  that  body  claimed  that  they  had 
not  been  given  as  directions  to  be  observed  in  making  the 
treaty,  but  simply  that  better  information  might  be  re- 
ceived concerning  the  Indians.  However,  when  such  an 
excuse  had  failed  to  give  satisfaction,  the  same  house 
acknowledged  that  the  power  of  war  or  peace  was  in  the 
crown ;  but  at  the  same  time  reminded  the  governor  that 
the  giving  of  money  and  support  to  such  war  or  peace 


312         MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

was  a  privilege  of  the  people.  Furthermore,  it  pretended 
that  the  intended  meeting  with  the  Indians  could  not 
properly  come  under  the  denomination  of  war  or  peace, 
since  the  demand  of  the  Indians,  so  far  as  Maryland  was 
concerned,  was  to  be  paid  for  land.  But  before  the  dis- 
pute had  arisen  with  respect  to  these  instructions,  provi- 
sion had  been  made  for  raising  ,£300,  and  the  governor, 
not  being  obliged  to  commission  those  named  by  the  lower 
house,  commissioned  only  such  as  he  thought  would  follow 
none  but  his  own  instructions.1 

It  was  during  the  last  intercolonial  war  that  the  gov- 
ernor was  made  most  conscious  of  his  weakness  or  very 
limited  war  power  resulting  from  the  poor  militia  law  and 
from  the  law  which  made  it  easy  for  the  lower  house  to 
refuse  to  meet  the  expense  of  any  warlike  activity  that  was 
engaged  in  for  any  other  purpose  than  to  repel  an  inva- 
sion. In  the  year  1755  Governor  Sharpe  wrote  :  "  We 
can  scarcely  oblige  the  people  to  act  in  defence  of  them- 
selves and  properties  when  immediately  attacked  ;  how, 
then,  will  they  obey  our  orders  to  leave  their  business  and 
families  when  they  have  not  the  least  prospect  or  expec- 
tation of  receiving  a  reward  for  their  troubles  ?  "  2  Two 
years  later,  the  same  governor  again  wrote  :  "  It  is  a 
question  whether  the  militia  can  be  compelled  to  march 
out  of  this  Province.  ...  I  do  not  believe  that  any  of 
them  would  march  to  garrison  Fort  Loudoun,  as  they 
would  conclude  that  the  Assembly  would  never  allow 
them  any  pay  or  provisions  while  they  should  remain  on 
that  service.  Indeed,  the  Assembly  has  been  too  back- 
ward in  making  the  men  that  have  at  times  been  ordered 
out  on  duty  a  proper  allowance.  And  as  most  of  the  men 
of  whom  the  militia  is  composed  depend  on  their  labor  fol 

1  L.  H.  J.,  May  23  to  June  1,  1744  ;  Dulany  Papers. 

2  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  I,  p.  221  ep  seq. 


MILITARY   AFFAIRS  313 

their  daily  bread  and  cannot  lose  any  time  without  dis- 
tressing their  families,  one  cannot  be  surprised  at  their 
being  less  alert  and  ready  to  march  than  might  be  ex- 
pected if  they  were  punctually  paid."1 

That  same  year,  after  the  lower  house  had  passed  a 
supply  bill  for  supporting  three  hundred  men  on  the 
western  frontier  upon  conditions  which  the  other  branches 
of  the  legislature  would  not  accept,  Governor  Sharpe  did 
his  best  to  show  how,  independent  of  all  aid  from  the 
lower  house,  he  could  provide  protection  for  that  frontier. 
He  said :  "  I  will  make  Captain  Beall  a  Major  of  the 
Militia  and  oblige  as  many  men  to  serve  under  him  as 
may  be  necessary  for  the  defence  of  Fort  Frederick  and 
the  more  immediate  protection  of  the  frontier  inhabitants. 
This  step  will  make  the  Assembly  sensible  that  I  can, 
even  without  their  assistance  or  consent,  oblige  the  militia 
to  do  the  duty  or  service  they  intend  the  three  hundred 
men  for,  and  that  I  am  on  my  part  resolved  to  exert  the 
power  with  which  I  am  to  their  mortification  invested. 
It  is  true  I  cannot  instantly  punish  every  person  that  shall 
refuse  to  march,  but  I  can  order  him  to  be  prosecuted 
before  the  Judges  of  our  Supreme  Court,  and  I  am 
thoroughly  satisfied  they  will  not  suffer  such  a  one  to 
escape  with  impunity.  And  though  I  have  no  power  to 
levy  money  without  the  consent  of  Assembly  to  pay  any 
part  of  the  militia  that  shall  march  in  obedience  to  my 
orders,  yet  I  can  impress  as  much  provisions  or  other 
necessaries  for  their  use  as  they  stand  in  need  of."2 

In  pursuit  of  this  resolution,  after  some  of  the  militia 
had  refused  to  march,  Sharpe  commanded  the  captain  of 
each  of  two  companies  to  certify  to  the  justices  the  names 
of  all  those  members  of  his  company  that  so  refused, 
and  to  proceed  without  delay  to  Fort  Frederick  with  such 

1  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  II,  p.  30.  2  Ibid.,  p.  103. 


314         MARYLAND   AS    A    PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

officers  and  men  as  should  be  willing  to  march,  though 
there  should  be  no  more  than  ten  or  even  a  less  number 
in  each  company.  As  a  result  of  such  orders  four  com- 
panies were  marched  to  the  western  frontier,  even  though 
some  members  of  the  lower  house  did  all  they  could  to 
encourage  those  companies  to  be  disobedient. 

But  this  success  of  the  governor  was  not  lasting,  and  in 
the  end  it  served  to  arouse  a  successful  opposition.  For 
at  the  next  meeting  of  the  Assembly  the  lower  house,  by 
a  vote  of  thirty-two  to  five,  sent  a  remonstrance  to  the 
governor  complaining  that  he  had  no  right  to  compel  the 
militia  to  march  except  to*  repel  an  actual  invasion.  After 
the  governor's  reply  to  that  remonstrance  was  regarded 
as  unsatisfactory,  the  same  body  sent  a  second  remon- 
strance in  which  they  intimated  that  the  militia  law  was 
not  in  force,  and  in  which  they  held  that  the  conditions 
on  the  frontier  were  quite  different  from  what  they  had 
been  two  years  before,  when  at  least  twenty-six  of  the  in- 
habitants there  had  been  killed  or  taken  prisoners  by  the 
enemy.  Then  this  second  remonstrance  continued  :  "  We 
are  really  at  a  loss  to  conceive  what  could  induce  your 
Excellency  to  be  of  the  opinion  that  you  had  a  power 
under  that  law  to  march  the  militia  of  this  Province  when- 
ever and  wheresoever  you  pleased,  and  that  in  order  to 
prevent  as  well  as  to  repel  an  invasion.  But  surely  there 
are  no  words  in  that  law  that  can  give  you  that  authority, 
nor  can  anything  be  farther  from  the  intent  and  design 
of  it  ;  for  such  an  authority  would  put  it  in  the  power  of 
the  Governor  of  this  Province,  whenever  he  found  himself 
opposed  in  any  views  or  designs  that  he  might  have  tend- 
ing to  destroy  the  liberties  of  the  people,  to  compel  the 
whole  militia  of  the  Province  at  any  time  when  he  might 
suggest  danger  to  march  to  any  part  of  the  Province  he 
pleased,  and  keep  them   there  until  the  Representatives 


MILITARY    AFFAIRS  315 

had  complied  with  all  his  demands,  let  them  be  never  so 
extravagant  or  injurious  to  the  people.  Such  a  power  we 
conceive  is  not  given  nor  could  ever  have  been  intended 
to  have  been  given  by  any  men  in  their  senses.  .  .  .  We 
are  apprehensive  unprejudiced  persons  may  infer  that 
those  who  advised  your  Excellency  to  take  that  measure 
intended  under  the  specious  pretence  of  affording  present 
protection  to  a  few,  by  degrees  to  introduce  an  arbitrary 
power,  the  exercise  of  which  must  in  the  end  inevitably 
enslave  the  whole."1 

A  few  days  later  the  house  passed  several  resolutions, 
among  which  were  the  following  :  "Resolved  unanimously 
that  it  is  the  undoubted  right  and  indispensable  duty  of 
the  Representatives  of  the  Freemen  of  this  Province  in 
Assembly  convened  to  inquire  into,  represent,  and  remon- 
strate against  every  measure  in  the  Administration  or 
exercise  of  executive  powers  of  Government  within  this 
Province  which  in  their  opinion  may  tend  to  affect  the 
Lives,  Liberties,  or  Properties  of  the  People  in  any 
manner  not  clearly  warranted  by  the  known  laws  or  cus- 
toms thereof." 

"  Resolved  that  no  person  is  punishable  for  obstinately 
refusing  to  appear  and  serve  in  arms  for  the  necessary 
defence  of  this  Province  by  virtue  of  that  clause  of  the 
act  for  Ordering  and  Regulating  the  Militia  of  this  Prov- 
ince for  the  better  defence  and  security  thereof  (admitting 
it  were  in  force),  which  vests  a  power  in  the  Justices  of 
the  Provincial  Court  to  fine  and  imprison  after  a  procedure 
according  to  the  due  course  of  Law  and  conviction  of  such 
obstinate  refusal  and  disobedience  as  aforesaid  except  upon 
a  foreign  invasion." 

"  Resolved  that  agreeable  to  a  reasonable  construction 
of  the  said  act  there  was  not  a  foreign  invasion  of  this 

1  L.  H.  J.,  April  15,  1758. 


316         MARYLAND    AS    A    PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

Province  in  December  last,  when  his  Excellency  the  Gov- 
ernor, with  the  advice  of  his  Council,  ordered  the  Com- 
panies of  Militia  of  Queen  Anne's  and  Kent  Counties  to 
march  to  the  western  frontier,  nor  was  there  one  when 
the  Companies  were  ordered  out  from  Calvert  and  Cecil 
Counties  in  March  last." 

"  Resolved  that  the  Governor  of  this  Province  setting 
up  an  authority  under  the  act  aforesaid,  with  the  advice 
of  the  Council,  to  march  the  good  people  of  this  Province 
to  the  frontiers  thereof  whenever  he  and  they  may  be 
apprehensive  of  a  foreign  invasion,  is  not  warranted  by 
the  act;  and  that  if  such  a  power  should  be  exercised,  the 
people  might  be  enslaved  by  being  marched  as  often  to 
and  compelled  to  remain  as  long  on  the  frontiers  as  the 
Governor  and  his  Council  might  think  fit,  while  their 
helpless  families  were  perishing  at  home."1 

What  the  governor  felt  to  be  the  force  of  these  resolu- 
tions was  seen  a  few  months  later  when  General  Forbes 
was  anxious  that  Fort  Cumberland  should  be  garrisoned 
with  Maryland  militia  for  three  or  four  weeks  in  order 
that  all  the  Virginia  troops  might  be  drawn  from  that 
post  to  strengthen  the  rear  of  his  army.  For  upon  that 
occasion  Governor  Sharpe  wrote  to  Pitt  as  follows  :  "  As 
our  Assembly,  when  they  met  last,  made  some  resolves 
declaring  our  militia  law  to  be  obsolete  or  not  in  force, 
and  denying  that  I  have  any  authority  or  right  with  the 
advice  of  the  Council  to  march  any  of  the  militia,  even  if 
our  law  was  in  force,  unless  in  case  of  an  actual  invasion, 
or,  as  they  construe  that  expression,  unless  a  very  large 
body  of  the  enemy  was  actually  in  the  heart  of  the  Prov- 
ince, I  have  told  General  Forbes  that  I  am  afraid  no  more 
of  the  militia  would  be  prevailed  upon  to  come  thus  far  if 
I  was  to  attempt  to  carry  them  to  Fort  Cumberland."  2 

1 L.  H.  J. ,  May  8, 1758.         2  Sharped  Correspondence,  Vol.  II,  p.  249  et  seq. 


MILITARY    AFFAIRS  317 

A  little  later  he  again  wrote,  "I  hope  General  Forbes 
does  not  depend  on  the  militia  of  this.  Province  to  garri- 
son Fort  Cumberland  ;  if  he  does,  he  will  most  certainly 
be  disappointed,  for  I  am  satisfied  it  will  not  be  in  my 
power  to  prevail  on  a  single  company  to  march  thither." 
The  governor's  power  over  the  militia  was,  therefore,  at 
last  reduced  to  little  more  than  a  shadow. 

In  most  of  the  money  or  supply  bills  framed  for  carry- 
ing on  this  last  war,  the  lower  house  not  only  insisted  on 
directing  how  the  province  of  Maryland  should  be  de- 
fended, but  in  such  bills  that  body  showed  much  less  zeal 
in  giving  aid  to  the  common  cause  than  it  did  in  limiting 
the  power  of  the  governor,  in  taxing  the  great  offices  and 
the  lord  proprietor's  private  property,  in  appropriating 
for  public  purposes  certain  revenues  which  the  proprietor 
claimed  he  had  a  right  to,  and,  after  the  rejection  of  such 
bills,  in  presenting  the  home  government  with  charges 
against  the  proprietary  government.  Yet  such  a  course 
was  the  most  natural  one.  For,  unlike  that  of  most  of 
the  other  provinces,  the  boundary  of  Maryland  was  so 
defined  by  charter  that  there  was  no  prospect  of  her 
acquiring  new  territory  by  conquest.  Her  people,  there- 
fore, except  when  greatly  alarmed  about  their  own  safety, 
had  no  desire  to  engage  in  that  war  or  burden  themselves 
with  any  expense  for  waging  it.  Because  by  so  doing 
they  would  seem  only  to  be  aiding  the  other  provinces  to 
expand  their  territory. 

The  government  of  Virginia  was  so  thoroughly  aroused 
when  it  learned  that  the  French  had  seized  and  impris- 
oned some  traders  of  the  Ohio  Company,  and  had  reduced 
and  pillaged  one  or  two  of  that  company's  fortified  trading- 
posts,  that  Colonel  Washington  was  despatched  to  require 
of  the  French  their  immediate  evacuation  of  the  invaded 
territory.    When  the  home  government  had  been  informed, 


318        MARYLAND    AS   A    PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

it,  through  its  secretary  of  state,  the  Earl  of  Holdernesse, 
urged  each  of  the  several  colonies  to  resist  any  encroach- 
ment of  the  enemy  on  the  British  possessions  in  America. 
But  in  response  to  Governor  Sharpe's  first  appeal  to  the 
Maryland  Assembly  for  aid  in  this  matter,  the  lower 
house,  on  November  16,  1753,  said  :  "  We  are  sufficiently 
apprehensive  of  the  great  danger  of  suffering  a  foreign 
power  to  encroach  upon  any  part  of  his  Majesty's  Domin- 
ions, and  we  are  resolutely  determined  to  repel  any  hostile 
invasion  of  the  province  by  any  foreign  power.  .  .  . 
And  whenever  the  circumstances  of  our  neighbors  require 
it,  we  will  cheerfully  contribute  as  far  as  we  are  able 
toward  defending  them  against  the  attacks  of  their  ene- 
mies ;  but  as  there  does  not  appear  at  present  to  be  any 
pressing  occasion  for  imposing  a  tax  upon  the  people  for 
these  purposes,  we  hope  our  unwillingness  to  do  it  at  this 
time  will  be  ascribed  to  the  real  motives  of  our  conduct,  a 
prudent  care  and  regard  to  the  interests  of  our  constitu- 
ents [rather]  than  [to]  any  disinclination  to  the  service 
recommended." 

Washington  returned  from  his  mission  less  than  three 
months  later  ;  and  it  was  stated  in  the  Maryland  Gazette 
of  February  14, 1754,  that  he  had  reported  that  the  French 
had  built  several  forts  near  the  Ohio ;  that  each  of  those 
forts  was  garrisoned  by  about  five  hundred  men,  chiefly 
French,  with  twelve  mounted  cannon  ;  that  great  num- 
bers of  other  Frenchmen  and  Indians  were  said  to  be 
close  at  hand  ;  and  that  the  commander  at  one  of  those 
forts  had  said  he  had  instructions  from  the  king  of  France 
to  advance  farther  and  fight  those  who  should  oppose. 
By  this  time,  therefore,  war  seemed  inevitable.  The 
Maryland  Assembly,  in  response  to  the  governor's  call, 
met  again  on  the  twenty-sixth  day  of  February.  On  that 
day  the  governor  endeavored  to  show  the  representatives 


MILITARY    AFFAIRS  319 

of  the  people  that  there  was  cause  for  alarm.  He  asked 
that  Virginia  be  assisted  in  the  campaign  which  she  was 
about  to  undertake.  He  laid  before  both  houses  a  written 
appeal  from  the  governor  of  that  province,  and  he  spoke 
of  the  need  of  money  for  making  a  present  to  the  Indians 
of  the  Six  Nations,  when,  in  June,  the  general  conference 
should  be  held  with  them  at  Albany.  But  on  the  third 
day  of  their  meeting  the  lower  house  unanimously  re- 
solved that  no  money  should  be  raised  in  response  to  the 
appeal  from  the  governor  of  Virginia  ;  and,  in  accordance 
with  that  resolution,  the  members  of  that  body  sent  a 
message  to  their  own  governor,  saying  :  "  We  are  fully 
convinced  that  our  own  security  is  connected  with  the 
safety  of  our  neighbors,  and  that  in  case  of  an  attack  we 
ought  mutually  to  assist  and  support  each  other.  But  as 
it  does  not  appear  to  us  that  an  invasion  or  hostile  attempt 
has  been  made  against  this  or  any  other  of  his  Majesty's 
colonies,  we  do  not  think  it  necessary  to  make  any  provi- 
sion for  an  armed  force,  which  must  inevitably  load  us 
with  expense." 

For  making  a  present  to  the  Indians,  that  house  was 
somewhat  more  willing  to  raise  money.  It  passed  a  bill 
raising  £300  for  a  present  and  .£200  for  defraying  the 
expense  of  the  commission.  Yet  in  doing  so  it  appro- 
priated the  money  arising  on  licenses  to  ordinary  keepers 
as  well  as  on  those  to  hawkers  and  pedlers.  The  lord 
proprietor  still  claimed  the  right  to  all  such  money  for  his 
private  use  ;  and  although  ever  since  the  last  intercolonial 
war  he  had  permitted  the  license  money  from  ordinaries 
to  be  applied  to  public  purposes,  that  arising  on  licenses 
to  hawkers  and  pedlers  had  never  yet  been  so  applied. 
Under  these  circumstances  the  upper  house  amended  the 
bill  so  as  to  leave  out  the  part  relating  to  hawkers  and 
pedlers  and  to  mortgage  the  license  money  from  ordinaries 


320         MARYLAND   AS    A    PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

for  the  whole  £500.  But  to  this  the  lower  house  would  not 
agree,  and  after  that  body  had  passed  four  resolutions  to 
justify  its  conduct  in  the  eyes  of  the  people,  the  session 
ended  without  having  made  provision  for  the  raising  of 
any  money  whatever. 

At  the  same  time  the  hostilities  of  the  French  and  their 
Indian  allies  were  becoming  more  alarming.  Governor 
Sharpe  soon  met  the  Assembly  again,  and  in  his  opening 
address,  on  the  eighth  day  of  May,  said,  "  I  am  very 
much  concerned  that  the  great  progress,  the  vast  prepara- 
tions, and  the  avowed  designs  of  our  common  enemy, 
whose  encroachments  and  depredations  on  his  Majesty's 
territories  occasioned  our  last  meeting,  have  necessitated 
the  neighboring  governments  to  repeat  again  most  ear- 
nestly their  solicitations  for  us  to  engage  and  unite  with 
them  in  supporting  his  Majesty's  just  and  right  preten- 
sions to  these  his  American  Dominions,  at  this  time  at- 
tacked and  invaded."  He  also  spoke  again  of  the  necessity 
of  complying  with  his  Majesty's  pleasure,  signified  by  the 
board  of  trade,  concerning  a  present  to  the  Six  Nations. 
Six  days  after  the  delivery  of  this  address  the  lower  house 
unanimously  resolved  that  money  be  raised  for  making 
a  present  to  the  Six  Nations  and  for  assisting  Virginia, 
which  was  now  regarded  by  that  body  as  attacked  and 
invaded. 

To  agree  upon  the  ways  and  means  of  raising  the  neces- 
sary money  was,  however,  yet  to  be  a  difficult  task.  The 
lower  house  decided  that  a  tax  of  five  shillings  should  be 
levied  on  each  wheel  of  a  coach,  chair,  chaise,  or  chariot, 
that  a  light  tax  should  be  levied  on  lawsuits,  that  twenty 
shillings  should  be  added  to  the  price  of  an  ordinary  license, 
that  the  duty  on  convicts  should  be  increased  by  twenty 
shillings,  the  duty  on  indented  servants  by  five  shillings, 
and  the  duty  on  negro  slaves  by  ten  shillings  per  poll.     It 


MILITARY    AFFAIRS  321 

was  also  again  decided  that  the  annual  license  sold  for  £3  to 
every  hawker  or  pedler  should  be  appropriated  to  this  end. 
Furthermore,  when  the  motion  was  put*to  tax  every  lucra- 
tive office,  it  was  carried  by  a  vote  of  twenty-eight  to  twenty- 
three  ;  and  in  accordance  with  that  vote  it  was  decided  that 
an  annual  graduated  tax  should  be  levied  on  offices  as 
follows:  on  that  of  secretary,  £5  ;  of  commissary  general, 
£5;  on  two  judges  of  the  land  office,  £5 ;  five  naval  officers, 
£10  ;  fourteen  county  clerks,  £14  ;  examiner  general,  £1 ; 
and  fourteen  county  surveyors,  £7.  Having  thus  decided 
upon  the  ways  and  means,  the  lower  house  quickly  passed 
the  bill  for  raising  £500  currency  for  a  present  to  the  Six 
Nations,  £150  currency  to  defray  the  expense  of  the  com- 
mission, and  £3000  currency  for  assistance  to  the  Vir- 
ginians. The  upper  house  objected  to  the  appropriation 
of  the  hawkers'  and  pedlers'  license  money  and  to  the  tax 
on  officers.  A  conference  was  held.  The  conferees  from 
the  lower  house  agreed  to  give  up  the  tax  on  officers, 
but  they  would  not  give  up  the  hawkers'  and  pedlers' 
license  money,  and  the  bill  was  lost.  Before  the  close  of 
the  session,  however,  the  two  houses  passed  an  ordinance 
for  taking  oat  of  the  treasurers'  hands  £500  currency  for 
a  present  to  the  Indians  and  £150  for  defraying  the 
expense  of  the  commission. 

Without  the  much  needed  assistance  from  Maryland  and 
with  only  three  hundred  men,  Colonel  Washington  set  out 
for  the  invaded  territory.  Upon  engaging  with  the  enemy, 
he  and  his  men  were  outnumbered  three  to  one.  Thirty 
of  his  men  were  killed,  seventy  were  wounded,  and  he 
was  forced  to  retreat.  Having  received  an  account  of 
this  repulse  as  well  as  the  news  that  the  French  had 
erected  Fort  Duquesne,  —  a  dangerous  menace  to  the 
frontier  settlements  of  both  Virginia  and  Maryland, — 
Governor  Sharpe  called   the   Assembly  to  meet   on   the 


322         MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

seventeenth  day  of  July,  and  in  his  opening  address  said  : 
"  The  designs  of  the  French  must  now  be  evident  to  every 
one.  They  have  openly  and  in  violation  of  all  treaties 
invaded  his  Majesty's  territories  and  committed  the  most 
violent  acts  of  hostility  by  attacking  and  entirely  defeating 
the  Virginia  troops  under  Colonel  Washington."  This 
time,  on  the  opening  day  of  the  session,  the  lower  house 
voted  to  raise  £6000  currency.  In  considering  the  ways 
and  means  it  was  resolved  to  tax  carriage  wheels,  to 
increase  the  price  of  ordinary  licenses,  to  increase  the 
duty  on  convicts,  indented  servants,  and  negro  slaves, 
and  to  appropriate  the  proceeds  of  the  sale  of  licenses  to 
hawkers  and  pedlers  just  as  was  provided  in  the  bill  of  the 
preceding  session ;  but  instead  of  the  tax  on  lawsuits  and 
on  officers,  it  was  decided  to  levy  a  duty  of  twopence  per 
gallon  on  Madeira  wine.  Finally  the  bill,  as  it  passed 
the  lower  house,  left  the  governor  free  to  apply  the  whole 
£6000  in  any  way  he  should  think  proper  for  the  assist- 
ance of  the  Virginians  and  for  the  relief  and  support  of 
the  wives  and  children  of  such  Indian  allies  as  should  put 
themselves  under  the  protection  of  the  government  of 
Maryland.  The  upper  house  passed  this  bill  without  an 
amendment,  it  became  a  law,  and  with  a  part  of  the  money 
thus  provided  the  governor  caused  two  companies  of  Mary- 
land troops  to  be  enlisted  and  then  sent  them  against  the 
French. 

In  November  of  this  year  Governor  Sharpe  received  a 
royal  commission  appointing  him  commander  of  all  the 
colonial  troops.  Hoping  that  the  honor  thus  bestowed  upon 
him  by  the  crown  would  give  him  greater  influence  with  the 
Assembly,  he,  on  the  twelfth  day  of  December,  met  that 
body  in  its  fourth  session  of  that  year.  But  in  response 
to  his  appeal  for  further  supplies,  the  lower  house  did  no 
more  than  to  pass  a  bill  for  raising  £7000  by  continuing 


MILITARY    AFFAIRS  323 

the  same  taxes  and  duties  that  had  been  levied  for  raising 
the  £6000  and  for  continuing  the  appropriation  of  the 
license  money  to  the  same  end.  As  the  governor  had 
recently  received  an  instruction  from  the  lord  proprietor 
forbidding  him  to  pass  another  bill  which  appropriated 
that  license  money  for  public  uses,  the  provisions  of  the 
new  bill  relating  both  to  licenses  of  ordinaries  and  to 
hawkers'  and  pedlers'  licenses  could  not  be  accepted.1 
Thus,  the  instruction  from  the  lord  proprietor  was  more 
than  an  offset  to  the  commission  from  the  crown,  and  the 
session  ended  without  anything  having  been  accomplished. 

The  next  session  began  February  22,  1755,  only  a  few 
days  after  notice  had  been  received  of  General  Braddock's 
arrival  in  Virginia.  On  the  twenty-sixth  day  of  the  same 
month  the  lower  house  voted  to  raise  £10,000  by  no  other 
plan  than  that  in  the  bill  of  the  last  session,  a  motion  to 
raise  it  by  a  poll  tax  of  Is.  6d.  being  lost  by  thirty-six 
votes  to  ten.  So,  again,  no  supplies  were  raised.  But 
after  the  failure  of  its  bill  the  lower  house  passed  several 
resolutions,  among  which  was  the  following,  "  Resolved, 
that  the  fines  arising  on  ordinary  licenses  are  and  always 
have  been  the  undoubted  right  of  the  country ;  that  the 
Lord  Proprietary  by  his  prerogative  can  have  no  right  to 
impose  or  levy  by  way  of  fine,  tax,  or  duty  any  sum  of 
money  on  any  person  whatsoever,  or  take  to  himself  any 
such  fine,  tax,  or  duty  imposed  by  any  law  of  this  prov- 
ince which  now  is  [expired]  or  hereafter  may  expire  without 
the  consent  of  the  representatives  in  general  assembly."2 

Furthermore,  that  house  at  this  time  addressed  the  gov- 
ernor as  follows,  "The  appropriation  of  the  ordinary 
license  fines  (which  has  at  last  appeared  to  be  the  great 
obstacle  to  our  repeated  generous  grants)  we  are  so  firmly 
of  opinion  is  the  undoubted  right  of  the  country  that 
i  Gilmore  Papers.  2  L>  H.  J.,  March  25,  1755. 


324         MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

nothing  will  ever  induce  us  to  give  it  up  or  do  anything 
which  may  weaken  that  right." 

Before  the  Assembly  was  again  called  General  Brad- 
dock  had  held  a  conference  at  Alexandria  with  the  sev- 
eral provincial  governors,  and  a  plan  of  operations  had 
there  been  agreed  upon.  After  that,  however,  on  June 
23,  1755,  the  next  session  was  opened.  By  this  time 
Braddock  was  approaching  the  enemy.  The  governor,  in 
his  opening  address,  stated  that  the  general  purposed  first 
to  reduce  Fort  Duquesne  and  expel  the  French  from  the 
invaded  territory,  and  then  to  repair  the  old  fort  or  con- 
struct another  place  of  defence  as  a  barrier  against  any 
future  encroachments.  Moreover,  the  governor  told  how 
it  had  been  further  planned  to  guard  that  place  of  defence 
with  provincial  troops,  and  to  ask  Maryland  and  the  two 
neighboring  provinces  to  support  and  victual  them.  Two 
days. after  this  plan  had  been  submitted,  the  lower  house 
inquired  of  the  governor  if  the  amount  each  of  the  three 
provinces  was  expected  to  raise  had  been  agreed  upon  at 
Alexandria.  If  it  had  been,  they  wished  to  know  what  those 
amounts  were.  To  this  inquiry  the  reply  was  that  noth- 
ing of  the  kind  had  been  entered  upon  as  it  was  appre- 
hended that  such  might  not  be  agreeable  to  the  respective 
assemblies.  At  the  same  time,  however,  the  governor 
stated  that  all  those  present  at  the  Alexandria  meeting 
had  agreed  that  the  three  provinces  ought  to  be  at  the 
expense  of  constructing  and  supporting  the  place  of  de- 
fence ;  and  he  thought  it  was  necessary  for  Maryland 
to  raise  at  least  .£4000  at  the  present  juncture.  The  day 
on  which  this  reply  was  received  the  lower  house  voted 
to  raise  £5000  for  the  purpose  mentioned  by  the  gov- 
ernor ;  but  the  very  next  step  which  that  body  took  was 
to  resolve,  by  a  vote  of  thirty-six  to  four,  that  the  license 
money  from  ordinaries,  amounting  to  about  £645  a  year, 


MILITARY    AFFAIRS  325 

should  be  one  of  the  sources  from  which  to  raise  the  sum 
named.  The  result  was  that  the  two  houses  could  not 
agree  upon  a  supply  bill  for  assisting  in  the  execution 
of  the  proposed  plan. 

Nevertheless,  as  obstacles  to  harmony  between  the 
several  branches  of  the  legislature  became  greater,  danger 
drew  nearer.  Within  one  week  from  the  day  this  session 
was  opened,  the  news  came  that  the  enemy  had  killed 
some  of  the  inhabitants  on  the  frontier  of  the  province, 
that  others  had  been  taken  prisoners,  and  that  because  of 
the  alarm  many  families  had  deserted  their  habitations 
and  fled  eastward  for  protection.  Upon  receiving  this 
news  the  governor  asked  that  provision  be  made  for 
raising  and  supporting  one  hundred  men  as  rangers,  and 
for  defraying  the  expense  of  establishing  and  maintaining 
communication  between  Annapolis  and  the  frontier.  The 
lower  house  promptly  responded  by  voting  to  make  suit- 
able provision  for  paying  and  maintaining  eighty  men, 
including  officers  to  range  on  the  frontiers  for  four  months 
and  to  defray  the  reasonable  expense  of  communication 
between  Annapolis  and  Will's  Creek  for  the  same  length 
of  time.  The  bill  which  that  body  passed  for  this  pur- 
pose provided  for  raising  £2000.  But  it  was  to  be  raised 
by  a  duty  on  wine,  rum,  brandy,  and  other  spirits,  and  by 
another  increase,  of  five  shillings  per  poll,  in  the  duty  on 
convicts.  And  this  was  the  beginning  of  a  controversy 
with  respect  to  the  convict  duty  that  was  continued  in 
several  succeeding  sessions,  the  governor  and  the  upper 
house  objecting  because  the  increase  in  the  duty  on  that 
class  of  servants  over  that  of  others  was  in  conflict  with 
acts  of  parliament  authorizing  their  importation.  A 
still  more  serious  objection  to  this  bill  was  found  in  the 
clause  which  directed  that  there  should  be  no  impress- 
ment of  anj  freeholder  or  housekeeper  ;  and  it  must  have 


326         MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

been  this  clause  in  particular  which  caused  the  upper 
house,  in  refusing  to  pass  the  bill,  to  say,  "  In  our  appre- 
hension it  is  framed  in  such  a  manner  that  it  would  be 
very  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  be  carried  into  execu- 
tion so  as  to  answer  the  purpose  proposed  by  it." 

Some  explanation  of  the  failure  of  the  lower  house  to 
frame  less  objectionable  supply  bills  at  this  pressing  time 
of  need  is  to  be  found  in  the  bitter  enmity  of  its  mem- 
bers toward  Catholics.  The  feeling  of  Protestants 
against  Catholics  had  been  strong  ever  since  the  eve  of 
the  Revolution  of  1689.  The  present  war  intensified  that 
feeling.  The  French  were  Catholics,  and  from  this  fact 
many  Maryland  Protestants  seem  to  have  reasoned  that 
Maryland  Catholics  were  allies  or  at  least  dangerous  sym- 
pathizers of  the  invading  enemy.  In  the  year  1751  the 
lower  house,  in  an  address  to  the  governor,  had  prayed 
that  his  Excellency  would  u  put  into  all  places  of  trust 
and  profit  none  but  faithful  Protestant  subjects,  known 
as  such  by  their  religious  and  civil  principles."  That 
same  year  the  two  houses  were  engaged  in  a  warm  dispute 
over  a  law  to  prevent  the  growth  of  popery. 

Again,  the  report  of  the  committee  on  grievances  which 
was  submitted  June  17,  1752  contained  the  following 
charges:  "Popish  Priests  or  Jesuits  take  grants  of  land 
from  the  Lord  Proprietary,  as  well  as  deeds  from  others 
in  their  own  names,  whereon  they  build  public  mass 
houses,  plantations,  seminaries,  for  the  public  exercise  of 
their  functions ;  of  which  mass  houses,  seminaries,  or 
sects  of  Jesuits  there  are  six  or  more." 

"  Many  Papists  openly  send  children  to  St.  Omer's  and 
other  Popish  seminaries,  out  of  the  King's  obedience, 
many  of  whom  return  to  this  province  propagating  their 
doctrines  without  control." 

u  Henry   Darnall,  the  Attorney  General,  was  brought 


MILITARY   AFFAIRS  327 

up  and  educated  at  St.  Omer's  and  professed  the  Popish 
religion  until  he  began  the  practice  of  law  and  of  his  tak- 
ing the  oaths  to  the  government." 

"  John  Darnall,  the  Attorney  General's  brother,  one  of 
the  Judges  of  the  Provincial  Court,  Clerk  of  Frederick 
County,  Deputy  Commissary  and  Receiver  General,  was 
bred  out  of  his  Majesty's  obedience  and  was  never  known 
to  attend  a  Protestant  church.  His  wife  is  a  Papist  and 
he  educate's  his  children  as  Papists.  Three  more  pro- 
vincial Judges  are  married  to  Papists,  two  of  whom  exe- 
cute the  most  considerable  offices  in  the  government. 
Most  of  the  Receivers  of  Quit-Rents  in  the  seven  coun- 
ties of  the  Western  Shore  are  Papists." 

"  Many  of  the  most  influential  Papists,  especially 
Charles  Carroll,  do  what  they  can  to  get  members  elected 
for  the  Lower  House  whom  they  think  will  best  serve 
their  purposes."1 

Early  in  the  year  1754,  at  the  time  when  the  lower 
house  was  refusing  to  give  assistance  to  the  Virginians, 
its  committee  on  grievances  was  expressing  the  fear  that 
the  growth  of  popery  within  the  province  and  the  large 
possessions  of  the  Jesuits  in  the  vicinity  of  the  French 
must  endanger  the  peace  of  the  province  and  the  repose 
of  all  his  Majesty's  colonies  on  the  American  continent. 
Two  months  later,  in  the  second  session  for  that  year, 
the  same  committee  reported  that  several  papists  of  St. 
Mary's  County  had  made  great  opposition  to  the  enlist- 
ment of  men  who  were  to  march  to  the  Ohio.  And  acting 
upon  this  report,  while  the  two  houses  were  unable  to 
agree  upon  a  supply  bill,  the  lower  house  passed  a  bill, 
entitled  "an  act  for  the  Security  of  his  Majesty's  Domin- 
ions and  to  prevent  the  Growth  of  Popery  in  this  Prov- 
ince," which  directed  that  manor  lands  belonging  to 
1  L.  H.  J.,  June  17,  1752. 


328         MARYLAND    AS    A    PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

Papists  should  be  taken  from  their  owners  and  sold  by 
commissioners  to  be  appointed  by  the  act,  and  that  the 
governor  and  council  should  apply  the  proceeds  of  such 
sales  toward  defending  the  province  from  the  encroach- 
ments of  the  French.1  Again,  in  November  of  this  same 
year,  some  freemen  of  Prince  George's  County  instructed 
their  delegates  "to  promote  with  all  their  weight  and 
influence  a  law  to  dispossess  the  Jesuits  of  those  large 
landed  estates  which  render  them  formidable  to  his 
Majesty's  good  Protestant  subjects,  to  exclude  Papists 
from  places  of  trusts  and  profit,  and  to  prevent  them  from 
sending  their  children  to  foreign  Popish  seminaries  for 
education."2 

So,  now,  in  this  second  session  of  the  Assembly  of  the 
year  1755,  when  the  French  or  their  Indian  allies  were 
killing  people  on  the  frontiers,  the  members  of  the  lower 
house  became  bold  and  open  in  charging  that  the  lord 
proprietor  and  his  governor  were,  to  an  alarming  extent, 
showing  favoritism  to  the  Catholics.  Thus,  at  this  session, 
the  members  of  that  body  made  angry  complaint  because 
such  men  as  Henry  Darnall  and  John  Darnall  had  not  been 
removed  from  office,  and  because  their  attempts  to  get  a  law 
for  the  security  of  Protestants  had  been  defeated.  They 
were  enraged  because,  as  they  charged,  the  governor  had 
pardoned  a  man  —  who  was  under  sentence  of  death  for 
an  atrocious  crime  —  upon  his  becoming  a  proselyte  to 
the  popish  religion  ;  and  because,  as  they  charged,  two 
other  popish  delinquents,  under  prosecution  for  crimes  of 
the  most  dangerous  nature  and  tendency,  had  obtained  a 
nolle  prosequi.  Although  Governor  Sharpe  showed  that 
their  charges  had  little  or  no  foundation,  he  was  unable, 
under  these  various   circumstances,  to  prevail  upon  that 

1  L.  H.  J.,  May  30,  1754. 

2  Maryland  Gazette,  November  28,  1754. 


MILITARY   AFFAIRS  329 

house  to  pass  a  supply  bill  which  did  not  seek  to  tie  his 
hands  to  such  an  extent  as  to  defeat  its  purpose. 

After  all  his  efforts  along  this  line  had  proved  to  be 
futile,  the  governor  prorogued  the  Assembly  on  the  eighth 
day  of  July.  Less  than  two  weeks  later  came  the  news 
of  Braddock's  defeat  and  death.  Thereupon,  Governor 
Sharpe,  assisted  by  several  small  companies  of  volunteers, 
did  his  best  to  defend  the  frontier.  But  in  spite  of  his 
best  efforts  such  great  consternation  arose  among  the  in- 
habitants of  that  region  that  large  districts,  once  inhabited, 
were  deserted  ;  and  the  freemen  of  Frederick  County 
petitioned  the  Assembly  to  do  something  for  their  protec- 
tion. The  Assembly,  however,  was  not  convened  again 
until  after  a  council  of  war  had  been  held  at  New  York, 
where  a  plan  of  operations  was  concerted,  and  the  quota 
of  supplies  expected  from  each  province  was  fixed.  But 
these  matters  having  been  attended  to,  the  next  session 
began  February  23,  1756.  From  February  26  to  March  3 
the  lower  house  sat  as  a  committee  of  the  whole  to  con- 
sider appropriations,  ways  and  means,  and  then  voted  to 
raise  £40,000,  of  which  £  11,000  was  to  be  applied  toward 
constructing  and  garrisoning  a  fort  and  not  more  than 
four  block-houses  on  the  frontier,  £775  for  the  more  im- 
mediate protection  of  that  frontier,  £3000  toward  secur- 
ing the  alliance  of  the  southern  Indians,  £10,000  toward 
carrying  on  an  expedition  to  the  westward  in  conjunction 
with  the  other  governments,  and  £15,000  toward  carry- 
ing on  the  plan  of  operations  to  the  northward.  The 
whole  amount  was  to  be  raised  by  an  excise  and  an  import 
duty  on  wine,  rum,  brandy,  and  other  spirits,  by  an 
import  duty  on  horses,  pitch,  turpentine,  and  tar,  by  an 
additional  duty  on  convicts  and  negro  slaves,  by  a  tax  on 
billiard  tables,  bachelors,  and  certain  legal  proceedings, 
by  a   tax  of   one  shilling  per  hundred  acres  on   land  if 


330  MARYLAND    AS   A    PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

owned  by  Protestants,  but  two  shillings  for  the  same  num- 
ber of  acres  if  owned  by  Catholics,  and  by  the  continued  ap- 
plication of  the  license  money  from  ordinaries  to  this  public 
end.  The  first  and  the  second  bills  framed  on  the  above 
bases  and  sent  to  the  upper  house  were  rejected.  But 
after  that  house  had  pointed  out  its  objections  to  the 
third,  a  conference  was  held.  During  the  conference  the 
lower  house  agreed  to  strike  out  the  clause  relating  to 
convicts,  made  some  concessions  with  respect  to  taxing 
the  proprietor's  lands  and  the  appointment  of  commis- 
sioners who  were  to  be  intrusted  with  the  application  of 
the  money.  So,  finally,  the  bill  became  a  law  after  the 
Assembly  had  been  in  session  for  more  than  ten  weeks. 
Even  then  its  military  provisions  such  as  related  to  the 
place  of  constructing  forts,  supporting  garrisons,  and 
forming  regiments  and  companies  tied  the  hands  of  the 
governor  much  more  closely  than  had  formerly  been  per- 
mitted. 

From  this  time  until  the  close  of  the  war,  nearly  seven 
years  later,  not  another  supply  bill  passed  the  Maryland 
Assembly.  In  September,  1757,  the  governor  informed 
that  Assembly  that  the  £40,000  as  well  as  the  £6000  were 
nearly  expended,  and  asked  for  further  support  of  the 
men  on  the  frontier  and  for  a  provision  for  receiving  such 
of  his  Majesty's  forces  as  should  be  sent  to  Maryland  for 
winter  quarters.  The  session  continued  from  Septem- 
ber 28  until  December  16,  and  it  was  a  most  stormy  one. 
The  lower  house  complained  of  the  hardships  imposed 
on  the  people  by  the  recruiting  officers.  It  charged  the 
troops  on  the  frontier  with  neglect  of  duty.  It  especially 
censured  the  governor  for  employing  any  of  those  troops 
to  garrison  Fort  Cumberland,  alleging  that  such  was  con- 
trary to  the  plain  intention  of  the  law  by  which  they  had 
been  raised.     It  even  found  fault  with  the  size  of  Fort 


MILITARY   AFFAIRS  331 

Frederick,  saying  that  it  was  to  be  apprehended  that  the 
fort  was  so  large  that  in  case  of  an  attack  it  could  not  be 
defended  without  more  men  than  the  province  could  sup- 
port merely  to  maintain  a  fortification.  Moreover,  that 
body  became  arrogant  and  unduly  suspicious  in  its  ex- 
amination of  accounts  relating  to  the  expenditure  of  the 
,£6000  that  had  been  granted  in  the  year  1754.  In  mak- 
ing the  examination  it  claimed  the  right  to  call  the 
governor's  secretary  before  its  bar  and  to  oblige  him  to 
answer  any  question  relating  to  those  accounts  which  it 
saw  fit  to  ask.  When  the  secretary  refused  to  answer 
some  of  the  questions  on  the  ground  that  they  too  much 
concerned  the  governor,  and  then  failed  to  attend  the  house 
again  as  requested,  a  warrant  was  issued  to  the  sergeant- 
at-arms  for  his  arrest.  In  attempting  to  execute  the 
warrant  the  sergeant  was  obliged  to  call  at  the  governor's 
house  ;  and  in  doing  so  the  governor  interfered  and  for- 
bade the  arrest.  The  lower  house  then  made  a  direct 
attack  on  the  governor,  charging  him  with  an  unwar- 
ranted exercise  of  power  in  several  instances,  and,  espe- 
cially, with  invading  the  rights,  privileges,  and  authority 
of  the  people's  representatives.  At  the  same  time,  also, 
the  governor's  secretary  was  basely  charged  with  embez- 
zlement. 

It  was  while  the  lower  house  was  thus  quarrelling 
with  the  governor  that  it  passed  a  bill  for  defending  the 
frontiers,  which  directed  that  Fort  Cumberland  should  no 
longer  be  garrisoned  by  Maryland  troops,  that  the  troops 
in  the  pay  of  the  province  should  not  exceed  three  hundred, 
and  that  they  should  be  not  otherwise  employed  than  in 
garrisoning  Fort  Frederick  and  in  ranging  just  beyond 
the  western  frontier  settlements.  As  there  had  but  re- 
cently been  more  killing  on  that  frontier,  and  as  the 
means  by  which  the  money  was  to  be  raised  did  not  seem 


332  MARYLAND   AS    A    PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

to  be  seriously  objectionable,  Governor  Sharpe  would  have 
favored  making  the  bill  a  law,  had  he  not  feared  that  the 
limitation  of  the  field  in  which  the  troops  were  to  be 
employed  too  much  encroached  on  the  royal  prerogative. 
But  not  wishing  to  take  the  responsibility  of  deciding 
this  question,  he  asked  the  advice  of  General  Loudoun. 
Whereupon  that  officer,  who  was  then  commander-in-chief 
of  his  Majesty's  forces  in  America,  wrote  in  reply  :  "  As 
you  have  asked  my  opinion  about  passing  the  bill,  if  pre- 
sented with  such  a  restriction,  I  am  clearly  of  opinion 
that  as  things  are  situated  at  present  in  America  I  should 
be  very  cautious  of  passing  any  bill  where  there  is  a  direct 
infringement  of  the  King's  prerogative,  which  I  think 
this  is.  And  I  am  still  more  of  opinion  that  it  would  be 
right  at  present,  as  you  are  of  opinion,  that  such  a  step 
would  have  a  good  effect ;  besides,  it  will  in  some  degree 
prevent  the  disease  from  spreading.  .  .  .  Your  assembly 
in  this  case  have  taken  a  step  that  tends  to  subvert  all 
government,  and  at  once  throw  off  all  submission  to  the 
Government  of  the  Mother  Country.  I  need  not  say  to 
you  how  fatal  the  example  may  be,  and  how  likely  other 
assemblies  are  to  follow  the  example  if  it  cannot  be 
stopped  here  till  the  King's  Ministers  are  informed  of  the 
situation  and  have  time  to  apply  a  proper  remedy  to  an 
evil  that  is  of  so  dangerous  a  nature." 

In  accordance  with  this  advice  the  bill  was  rejected  ; 
but  what  was  the  final  result  of  the  governor's  resolve  to 
march  militia  to  do  the  service  for  which  those  three 
hundred  troops  were  intended  has  already  been  seen. 
Then,  too,  when  the  governor  encouraged  private  subscrip- 
tions as  a  means  of  providing  protection  for  the  frontiers, 
he  again  met  with  opposition  from  members  of  the  lower 
house,  who  sought  to  persuade  the  people  that  if  the  gov- 
ernor should  raise  money  by  such  methods,  they  must  not 


MILITARY    AFFAIRS  333 

hope  to  have  any  more  assemblies  convened,  but  that 
they  would  have  to  obey  orders  in  council  and  ordinances 
instead  of  laws  made  with  the  consent  of  their  representa- 
tives. In  this  manner  thwarted  again  in  his  untiring 
efforts,  the  governor  murmured,  saying,  "  Thus  may  these 
Tribunes  impose  on  the  weak  minds  of  the  people,  and 
while  they  delude  them  with  the  empty  sound  of  Liberty 
and  Privilege  most  effectually  contribute  to  their  destruc- 
tion and  the  loss  of  his  Majesty's  Dominions."1 

In  the  year  1758  General  Forbes  set  out  on  his  expe- 
dition against  Fort  Duquesne.  As  if  for  aid  in  this 
expedition,  the  lower  house  passed  a  bill  —  the  third  of 
like  kind  during  the  same  year  —  for  raising  one  thousand 
men  and  £45,000  to  pay  them.  But  from  several  clauses 
in  that  bill  one  is  inclined  to  infer  that  the  real  intention 
of  the  house  which  passed  it  was  to  embarrass  the  govern- 
ment of  the  province  rather  than  to  give  assistance  to 
General  Forbes.  The  upper  house  rejected  it  because  it 
provided  for  giving  to  the  lower  house  the  sole  right  of 
nominating  the  commissioners  to  whom  the  money  was 
to  be  intrusted  and  by  whom  paid  out ;  because  it  pro- 
vided for  a  double  tax  on  land  held  by  Catholics ; 
because  the  tax  which  it  proposed  to  impose  on  offices 
was  much  too  heavy ;  because  it  proposed  to  tax  the 
proprietor's  quit-rents  and  his  uncultivated  as  well  as  his 
cultivated  lands  ; 2  and  because  of  no  less  than  ten  minor 
objections. 

In  claiming  the  sole  right  of  nominating  commissioners 
the  lower  house  was  putting  itself  on  an  equality  with  the 
House  of  Commons.  In  endeavoring  to  impose  a  tax  on 
the  proprietor's  lands  and  quit-rents,  on  offices,  and  a 
double  tax  on  the  land  of  Catholics,  that  house  was  but 
seeking  to  give  blows  to  the  lord  proprietor,  his  friends, 

1  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  I,  p.  251.  2  Supra,  p.  100. 


334  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

and  dependents.  In  fact,  there  seems  to  have  been  much 
truth  in  the  assertion  of  Governor  Sharpe  at  this  time, 
that  the  chief  men  in  the  lower  house  were  anxious  to 
throw  everything  into  confusion,  in  the  hope  that  the  crown 
would  then  think  it  necessary  to  interfere  in  some  manner 
or  other  that  might  be  disagreeable  to  the  lord  proprietor. 

That  their  own  conduct  might  not  appear  without  any 
justification,  the  members  of  that  body  at  this  time  passed 
ten  resolutions,  among  which  were  the  following  :  "  Re- 
solved, that  the  right  of  nomination  of  commissioners  in 
all  bills  of  this  nature  being  constantly  exercised  by  the 
House  of  Commons  does  of  course  rest  in  this  House ;  it 
being  the  undoubted  right  of  the  people  of  this  province, 
as  far  as  is  consistent  with  their  circumstances  and  depen- 
dent state,  freely  to  exercise  and  to  enjoy  every  liberty 
and  privilege  that  his  Majesty's  subjects  in  Great  Britain 
have  either  by  themselves  or  their  Representatives  a  right 
to  exercise  and  enjoy  according  to  the  Law  and  Constitu- 
tion of  the  Realm." 

"  Resolved  that  as  a  double  tax  on  Papists  and  other 
Nonjurors  is  constantly  imposed  by  the  land  tax  acts  in 
the  Mother  Country,  this  House  think  themselves  suffi- 
ciently justified  in  imposing  it  here,  and  that  considering  the 
many  valuable  possessions  both  of  lands  and  Negroes  held 
by  societies  of  Popish  Priests  and  Jesuits  living  together 
in  a  collegiate  manner,  and  the  number  of  Papists  and 
other  Nonjurors  residing  in  this  Province,  and  the  danger 
arising  from  their  known  principles  which  are  incompati- 
ble with  and  destructive  of  all  Protestant  establishments, 
it  is  thought  but  common  prudence  to  distinguish  their 
disaffection  by  some  public  discouragement." 

"  Resolved  that  in  all  grants  of  aids  for  his  Majesty's 
service  and  defence  and  security  of  this  Province  it  is  just 
and  reasonable  that  the  Lord   Proprietary,  who  is  more 


MILITARY   AFFAIRS  335 

nearly  and  immediately  interested  than  almost  any  of  his 
Tenants,  should  bear  at  least  an  equal  proportion  with 
them  of  the  taxes  necessarily  imposed  for  those  purposes, 
and  that  if  his  Lordship  should  desire  (which  we  cannot 
suppose)  to  be  totally  exempted  from  the  payment  of  a 
tax  upon  so  large  a  part  of  his  revenue  as  his  quit-rents, 
it  would  discover  an  inclination  to  oppress  his  Tenants  by 
loading  them  with  that  expense  which  he  himself  ought 
to  bear  for  the  security  of  his  own  property,  and  betray  a 
want  of  zeal  and  loyalty  to  his  most  Gracious  Sovereign 
by  not  cheerfully  contributing  with  the  rest  of  his  Subjects 
toward  the  defence  and  support  of  his  just  rights  against 
the  encroachments  of  his  most  inveterate  enemy." 

"  Resolved  that  a  tax  similar  to  that  imposed  by  the  bill 
upon  lucrative  offices,  employments,  and  benefices  is  com- 
monly imposed  in  England ;  and  it  is  the  more  reasonable 
and  just  here  as  so  large  a  proportion  of  the  produce  of 
the  people's  labor  is  given  by  law  to  the  maintenance  and 
support  of  the  Officers  and  Clergy."1 

Not  long  after  the  passing  of  the  above  resolutions  an 
article  was  inserted  in  the  London  Chronicle  which  ex- 
pressed great  concern  for  the  success  of  the  expedition 
against  Fort  Duquesne  since  it  was  to  receive  no  aid 
from  Maryland,  and  then  stated  that  the  failure  of  the  bill 
had  been  chiefly  due  to  the  lord  proprietor's  refusal  to  allow 
his  estate  to  be  taxed.  A  reply  to  the  above  in  justifica- 
tion of  the  lord  proprietor  drew  out  another  article  con- 
taining several  queries  which  were  designed  to  cast 
reflections  on  the  government  of  Maryland.  The  last 
of  these  queries  was,  "  Whether  the  frequent  clashing  of 
interest  between  the  Proprietors  and  people  of  our  Colo- 
nies, which  of  late  have  been  so  prejudicial  to  his  Majesty's 
service  and  the  defence  of  his  Dominions,  do  not  at  length 

1  L.  H.  J.,  May  9,  1758. 


336  MARYLAND   AS    A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

make  it  necessary  for  this  Nation  to  inquire  into  the 
nature  and  conduct  of  these  Proprietary  Governments  and 
put  them  on  a  better  footing  ?  " 1 

The  expedition,  however,  was  successful ;  and  yet  be- 
cause of  its  success  and  the  capture  of  Fort  Duquesne 
the  inhabitants  of  Maryland  were  still  less  concerned  with 
respect  to  their  own  safety.  The  consequence  of  this  was 
that,  although  the  home  government  again  and  again 
pressed  the  Assembly  to  raise  its  quota  for  the  purpose 
of  bringing  the  war  to  an  end,  the  lower  house  year  after 
year,  and  sometimes  twice  in  the  same  year,  —  nine  times 
in  all,  —  framed  and  passed  a  bill  with  the  same  objection- 
able clauses  as  that  which  they  passed  for  giving  aid  to 
the  expedition  against  Fort  Duquesne. 

Three  years  after  that  expedition  the  same  house  —  this 
time  in  an  address  to  the  crown —  not  only  sought  to  jus- 
tify their  course,  but  even  to  win  the  favor  of  the  crown 
with  gracious  words,  and  to  throw  the  blame  on  the  lord  pro- 
prietor and  his  government  for  the  failure  of  Maryland  to 
give  the  aid  desired.  Thus,  in  that  address,  was  the  fol- 
lowing clause,  "  May  it  please  your  Majesty  to  indulge 
us,  destitute  as  we  are  of  the  proper  means  of  obtaining 
access  to  the  Throne,  while  we  make  use  of  the  opportu- 
nity of  humbly  expressing  our  concern  that  this  Province 
has  during  the  present  just  and  necessary  war  contributed 
so  little  to  the  service  of  our  late  most  Gracious  Sovereign, 
and  our  confidence  that  until  a  full  inquiry  be  made  into 
the  causes  thereof  which  we  most  earnestly  desire,  and  the 
people  shall  be  permitted  to  raise  a  support  for  an  Agent^ 
who  may  lay  all  their  grievances  which  they  suffer  under 
the  Government  of  their  Lord  Proprietary  properly  before 
your  Majesty,  you  will  be  most  graciously  pleased  to  con- 
tinue that  favorable  opinion  which  we  hope   you  have 

i  Portfolio  13,  Nos.  23  and  24. 


MILITARY    AFFAIRS  337 

hithecto  entertained  of  the  Protestant  inhabitants  of  the 
Province  of  Maryland,  than  whom,  permit  us,  Royal  Sir, 
to  say  your  Majesty  has  not  in  all  your  Dominions  sub- 
jects more  loyal,  more  hearty  well  wishers  to  our  present 
happy  establishment,  or  more  firmly  or  affectionately 
attached  to  your  most  Sacred  Person  and  Government."1 

On  the  other  hand,  the  lord  proprietor,  with  the  hope, 
perhaps,  of  convincing  the  representatives  of  the  people 
that  they  were  in  the  wrong,  asked  the  attorney  general, 
Pratt,  to  give  his  opinion  with  respect  to  the  objection- 
able clauses  of  the  bill.  In  response  thereto  that  officer 
held  that  the  nomination  of  commissioners  belonged  to 
both  houses  conjointly,  that  a  double  tax  on  Catholics 
would  be  a  breach  of  public  faith  and  tend  to  subvert  the 
very  foundation  of  the  Maryland  constitution,  and  that  a 
tax  on  the  lord  proprietor's  uncultivated  lands  would  be 
unreasonable.  Then,  in  general,  he  said,  that  the  lord  pro- 
prietor ought  to  resist  with  firmness  all  unreasonable 
attempts  of  the  lower  house  to  assume  to  themselves  privi- 
leges which  the  House  of  Commons  enjoyed.  "  For,"  he 
continued,  "  I  am  satisfied  neither  the  Crown  nor  the  Par- 
liament will  ever  suffer  these  assemblies  to  erect  them- 
selves into  the  power  and  authority  of  the  British  House 
of  Commons."2 

But  only  a  short  time  after  these  opinions  had  been  laid 
before  the  lower  house,  Governor  Sharpe  stated  that  he 
was  convinced  that  that  body  would  frame  a  supply  bill 
on  the  old  terms  unless  the  secretary  of  state  sent  a  letter 
expressing  his  disapproval  of  their  conduct.  And  as  for 
the  inhabitants  of  the  province  in  general  at  that  time,  he 
said  in  a  letter  to  the  lord  proprietor,  "  They  seem  to  be 
very  well  pleased  since  they  are  not  burdened  with  any 
more  taxes,  and  as  they  do  not  conceive  themselves  to  be 

i  L.  H.  J.,  April  22,  1761.  2  U.  H.  J.,  April  17,  1759. 

z 


338  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

in  danger  now  from  the  enemy,  and  are  not  ambitious  for 
acquiring  a  reputation  for  zeal  and  exemplary  loyalty, 
they  seem  to  be  very  indifferent  about  the  event  of  the 
campaign."1 

Finally,  a  letter  "from  the  secretary  of  state,  somewhat 
of  the  nature  the  governor  desired,  was  sent  and  laid 
before  the  lower  house.  But  with  respect  to  it  that 
house  simply  said  :  "  As  to  the  severe  reprehension  con- 
tained in  the  Earl  of  Egremont's  letter,  which  you  have 
been  pleased  to  lay  before  us,  it  is  the  particular  misfor- 
tune of  this  Province  to  be  without  an  Agent  at  home  to 
represent  the  transactions  of  their  Delegates  in  their  true 
light,  owing  to  the  constant  refusal  of  the  Upper  House 
to  pass  the  bills  which  have  been  at  almost  every  oppor- 
tunity offered  them  for  the  support  of  a  person  in  that 
character  in  London.  And  as  that  reprehension  is  so  gen- 
eral, we  must  conclude  that  our  most  Gracious  Sovereign 
and  his  Ministers  have  not  been  fully  and  truly  informed 
of  the  repeated  generous  offers  of  the  people  heretofore 
made  by  their  Representatives  to  raise  very  large  supplies 
for  his  Majesty's  service  by  bills  passed  for  those  purposes 
and  constantly  refused  by  the  Upper  House."2  Thus  did 
the  people's  representative  body  remain  firm  to  the  end. 

During  this  last  war,  therefore,  the  conditions  were 
especially  favorable  for  fostering  the  principles  of  popular 
government.  While  the  lord  proprietor's  control  of  his 
government  was  still  further  weakened,  the  course  pursued 
by  the  lower  house  must  have  had  great  weight  in  causing 
the  home  government  to  resolve  upon  taxing  the  colonies. 
So  that  this  was  a  period  of  great  advance  from  the  once 
monarchical  Maryland,  subject  to  a  greater  and  a  lesser 
king,  to  the  time  when  she  should  become  first  supreme 
over  the  lesser  and  then  independent  of  the  greater. 

1  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  II,  p.  397.  2  L.  H.  J.,  March  19,  1762. 


CHAPTER   V 

FINANCE 

"Most  of  the  contests  of  the  ancient  commonwealths," 
says  Burke,  "turned  primarily  on  the  election  of  magis- 
trates, or  on  the  balance  of  the  several  orders  of  the  state. 
The  question  of  money  was  not  with  them  so  immediate. 
But  in  England  it  was  otherwise.  On  the  point  of  taxes  the 
ablest  pens  and  most  eloquent  tongues  have  been  exercised  ; 
the  greatest  spirits  have  acted  and  suffered."  The  ear- 
nestness, the  steadfastness,  and  the  force  of  language  with 
which  the  lower  house  of  the  Assembly  engaged  in  so 
many  disputes  in  which  property  was  involved  show  that 
the  importance  which  the  people  of  Maryland  attached  to 
money  matters  was  much  like  that  which  Burke  found  it 
to  have  been  in  the  mother  country.  The  people  of  Mary- 
land were  little  subject  to  the  bondage  of  religious  ideas 
handed  down  from  above.  The  interests  which  controlled 
their  thoughts  and  actions  were  industrial  and  economic ; 
and  it  was  in  the  dependence  of  the  government  upon 
those  controlling  interests  that  the  people  were  enabled 
to  acquire  great  political  power. 

The  government  was  dependent  upon  contributions 
from  the  people  for  military  protection,  for  the  pay  of  the 
civil  officers,  for  the  erection  of  public  buildings,  for  the 
making  of  other  public  improvements,  for  the  support  of 
schools,  and  for  the  support  of  the  established  church. 
Those  contributions  were  made  in  the  form  of  taxes,  duties, 
fees,  license  money,  fines,  and  forfeitures  ;  and  with  respect 

339 


340  MARYLAND   AS    A    PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

to  every  one  of  them  some  important  question  arose. 
With  respect  to  taxes  and  duties,  the  Assembly,  as  early 
as  the  year  1650,  passed  an  act  to  prohibit  the  levying  of 
either  without  the  consent  of  the  people  or  their  repre- 
sentatives ;  however,  instead  of  keeping  the  government 
subject  to  annual  appropriations,  the  lower  house,  during 
the  period  of  royal  government,  passed  an  important  reve- 
nue bill  without  any  limit  as  to  its  duration.  With  re- 
spect to  fees,  the  question  was  whether  they  were  of  the 
nature  of  taxes,  and,  therefore,  whether  either  the  lord 
proprietor  or  the  governor  in  council,  without  the  consent 
of  the  lower  house,  had  the  right  to  fix  their  amount. 
With  respect  to  license  money,  fines,  and  forfeitures,  the 
question  was  whether  income  from  such  sources  belonged 
to  the  proprietor  for  his  private  use,  or  whether  it  should 
be  a  part  of  the  public  revenue. 

Of  taxation  there  were  two  forms ;  namely,  the  personal, 
or  poll  tax,  and  the  property  tax ;  but  the  former  was 
much  the  more  common.  In  fact,  the  latter  was  used  only 
during  the  government  under  the  Puritan  commissioners 
and  for  raising  a  part  of  the  sums  named  in  the  two  supply 
bills  that  were  passed  during  the  fourth  intercolonial  war. 
However,  from  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  the 
lower  house  was  anxious  to  employ  that  method  in  order 
to  throw  the  larger  burden  on  the  luxuries  of  the  wealthy, 
in  order  to  oblige  the  lord  proprietor  to  pay  a  larger  share, 
and  in  order  —  by  appointing  the  assessors  and  collectors 
—  to  gain  a  greater  control  over  the  laying  and  collecting 
of  taxes,  perhaps,  again,  at  the  expense  of  the  lord  proprie- 
tor and  his  wealthy  dependents. 

The  poll  tax  furnished  the  means  whereby  the  members 
and  the  clerks  of  both  houses  of  Assembly,  the  justices  of 
the  provincial  court  and  of  the  county  courts,  the  clergy, 
and,  for  a  time,  the  members  of  the  council  were  paid, 


FINANCE  341 

most  of  the  public  buildings  were  erected,  other  public 
improvements  carried  on,  and,  until  the  fourth  inter- 
colonial war,  the  expense  of  military  operations  defrayed. 
Previous  to  the  year  1650  public  charges  for  any  of  the 
above  purposes  were  assessed  upon  the  taxable  inhab- 
itants somewhat  in  proportion  to  the  value  of  their 
estates.  But,  from  not  later  than  the  year  1654,  the 
value  of  the  estates  ceased  to  be  taken  into  account,  and 
the  tax  became  more  properly  a  poll  tax.  By  assessing 
it  upon  servants  and  slaves  as  well  as  upon  freemen,  it 
was  thought  by  some  that  the  burden  of  such  a  tax  con- 
tinued to  fall  upon  those  who  had  to  pay  it  quite  nearly 
in  proportion  to  the  value  of  their  estates.1  Yet,  at  the 
time  of  Bacon's  rebellion  in  Virginia,  the  complaint  arose 
in  Maryland  that  the  poor  freemen  were  obliged  to  pay 
taxes  equal  with  the  rich.2 

For  determining  what  persons  should  be  treated  as  tax- 
ables,  or  made  subject  to  the  poll  tax,  there  was  no  law 
until  1654 ;  and  even  then  an  act  of  assembly  of  that 
year  merely  required  that  the  tax  should  be  imposed  upon 
servants  —  except  white  women  servants  —  as  well  as 
upon  freemen.  That  act  did  not  long  continue  in  force, 
and  another  was  not  made  to  take  its  place  until  1674, 
when  it  was  enacted  that  taxables  should  include  all  free- 
men, except  priests  and  ministers,  who  were  sixteen  years 
of  age  and  over  ;  all  male  servants  imported  at  the  age  of 
ten  years  and  over,  and  all  slaves  whatsoever  of  the  age  of 
ten  years  and  over.  In  the  year  1692  the  law  was  so 
changed  as  to  increase  the  age  limit  of  slaves  and  imported 
male  servants  to  sixteen  years,  and  to  exempt  paupers 
from  paying  the  tax.  In  the  year  1715  the  law  was 
further  amended  so  as  to  exempt  no  other  clergymen  than 

1  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  II,  p.  100  et  seq. 

2  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1671  to  1681,  p.  139. 


342  MARYLAND   AS   A  PROPRIETARY  PROVINCE 

those  of  the  Church  of  England  having  benefices  within 
the  province,  and  so  as  to  direct  that  the  names  of  slaves, 
adjudged  by  any  county  courts  to  be  past  labor,  might  be 
stricken  off  the  list.  Finally,  in  the  year  1725,  it  was 
enacted  that  female  mulattoes  born  of  white  women  and 
all  free  negro  women  should  be  counted  as  taxables. 

For  a  time  the  lists  of  taxables  were  prepared  under  the 
supervision  of  the  sheriffs.  But  in  1670  the  council  felt 
that  the  lists  thus  prepared  were  incomplete,  and,  as  a 
consequence,  the  constable  of  each  hundred  was  given 
directions  for  preparing  such  a  list.  From  the  year  1692 
an  act  of  assembly  directed  that  the  constable  should,  be- 
tween the  twentieth  day  of  June  and  the  last  day  of  July, 
repair  to  every  house  or  habitation  within  his  hundred, 
and  ascertain  of  some  chief  person  in  the  family  the  num- 
ber of  taxables  within  the  household.  After  securing  this 
information,  he  was  to  prepare  two  lists  of  all  the  taxables 
within  his  hundred,  send  one  to  the  sheriff  of  the  county,  by 
the  first  day  of  August,  and  present  the  other  at  the  next 
county  court  to  be  set  up  for  public  inspection.  Each 
sheriff  was  to  send  a  list  of  the  taxables  for  his  county  to 
the  secretary's  office  by  the  twentieth  day  of  September. 

A  committee  on  accounts,  consisting  of  two  members 
from  the  upper  house  and  four  or  five  members  from  the 
lower  house,  examined  and  either  passed  or  rejected  pub- 
lic claims.  The  journal  of  accounts,  as  made  out  by  this 
committee,  had  to  pass  both  houses.  To  the  amount  in 
the  journal  when  passed,  was  added  whatever  sum  any  act 
or  ordinance  of  assembly  directed  should  be  raised  by  this 
form  of  tax.  An  act  of  assembly  was  then  passed  by 
which  a  committee,  consisting  of  five  members  of  the 
upper  house,  and  one  of  the  four  delegates  from  each 
county,  was  empowered  to  meet  at  Annapolis  the  fourth 
Tuesday  in  October,  then  and  there  pass  upon  such  other 


FINANCE  343 

accounts  as  had  become  due,  and  lay,  assess,  and  apportion 
the  public  levy.  The  fiscal  year  ended  the  tenth  day  of 
November.  By  that  day  was  added  to  each  county's 
apportionment  whatever  sum  the  county  court  levied  as 
county  and  parochial  charges.  Then  the  whole,  includ- 
ing the  forty  pounds  of  tobacco  per  poll  for  the  clergy  as 
well  as  the  fees  of  officers,  was  collected  by  the  sheriff  on 
a  commission  of  five  per  cent. 

Next  to  taxation  proper,  duties  on  both  imports  and 
exports,  but  especially  the  export  duty  on  tobacco,  were 
an  important  source  of  revenue.  From  the  year  1671,  by 
an  export  duty  on  tobacco  the  governor  was  paid  his  sal- 
ary, the  lord  proprietor  was  for  a  time  paid  his  quit-rents, 
for  more  than  half  a  century  a  fund  was  raised  for  the  pur- 
chase of  arms  and  ammunition,  from  the  year  1723  schools 
received  some  support,  and  from  the  year  1732  a  paper  cur- 
rency was  successfully  circulated.  By  both  an  export  and 
an  import  duty  on  beef  and  pork,  by  an  import  duty  on 
wines  and  other  liquors,  on  pitch  and  tar,  and  on  negroes 
and  Irish  Catholic  servants,  some  further  income  was 
derived  for  the  support  of  schools.  By  several  import 
duties,  also,  some  money  was  raised  for  his  Majesty's 
service  during  the  third  and  fourth  intercolonial  wars. 

The  several  duties  were  collected  by  the  naval  officers, 
paid  by  them  to  the  treasurers,  and  applied,  according  to 
the  directions  of  acts  of  assembly,  by  the  governor  and 
council.  But  full  accounts  to  the  lower  house  of  all  re- 
ceipts and  expenditures  were  required,  and  the  same 
were  examined  by  the  committee  on  accounts  of  that 
body. 

In  the  year  1766,  when  the  population  of  the  province  was 
not  far  from  one  hundred  and  seventy  thousand,  of  whom 
about  one-third  were  blacks,  the  annual  receipts  from  taxes 
and  duties  were  reported  to  have  been  about  £30,000  ster- 


344  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE   • 

ling.1  As  all  taxes  and  duties  were  at  one  time  or  an- 
other levied  by  consent  of  their  representatives,  the  people 
at  no  time  made  any  serious  complaint  about  their  being 
oppressive,  except  during  the  twenty  years  immediately 
preceding  the  Revolution  of  1689,  in  which  time  it  was 
charged  that  the  lord  proprietor  exerted  an  undue  control 
over  the  Assembly.  However,  even  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  some  long-continued  disputes  arose. 

And  what  is  especially  deserving  of  notice  is,  that  the 
principal  one  of  those  disputes,  the  one  from  which  others 
took  their  rise,  was  closely  involved  with  the  proprietor's 
relation  to  the  province  as  its  territorial  lord.  That  prin- 
cipal dispute  pertained  to  a  duty  for  the  support  of  gov- 
ernment, and,  from  the  year  1671  until  the  year  1733  the 
act  of  assembly,  which  imposed  that  duty,  also  made  an  im- 
portant provision  with  respect  to  the  payment  of  quit-rents. 
Here,  then,  it  will  appear  that  the  territorial  relations 
had  an  important  bearing  on  the  proprietary  government.2 

From  1671  to  the  Revolution  of  1689  the  act  that  im- 
posed twelvepence  duty  per  hogshead  on  tobacco  for  the 
support  of  government  during  the  life  of  the  lord  pro- 
prietor, also  required  that  the  proprietor  during  his  life- 
time should  receive  payment  for  his  quit-rents  in  tobacco 
at  twopence  per  pound.  During  the  period  of  the  royal 
government,  the  provision  with  respect  to  quit-rents  con- 
tinued unchanged  until  the  death  of  the  lord  proprietor, 
Charles,  in  1715  ;  while  the  duty  for  the  support  of  gov- 
ernment was  made  perpetual.  Then,  upon  the  restoration 
of  the  proprietary  government,  when  that  part  of  the  old 
law  which  related  to  the  payment  of  quit-rents  had  ex- 
pired, the  other  part,  which  had  become  perpetual,  was 
set  aside  by  a  temporary  act  for  paying  the  quit-rents  as 
well  as  for  giving  a  support  to  the  government.     The 

i  Portfolio  3,  No.  12.  2  Supra,  pp.  79-82,  172,  181,  290. 


FINANCE  345 

temporary  act  was  continued  by  successive  revivals  until 
the  year  1783.  But  from  ten  years  before,  there  had  been 
a  growing  complaint  that  the  provision  in  that  act  with 
respect  to  quit-rents  was  more  favorable  to  the  proprietor 
than  to  the  people.  It  was,  therefore,  at  last  suffered  to 
expire  ;  and  then,  again,  the  duty  for  the  support  of  gov- 
ernment was  imposed  and  collected  under  the  earlier  law, 
which,  as  a  perpetual  act  of  1704,  had  not  been  repealed. 
It  is,  therefore,  clear  that  originally  the  duty  for  the  sup- 
port of  government  was  given  only  in  return  for  favorable 
terms  on  which  to  pay  quit-rents ;  that,  later,  the  provi- 
sion for  the  support  of  government  was  given  an  unlimited 
term  of  duration,  while  that  with  respect  to  quit-rents 
remained  limited  ;  and  that,  finally,  the  people  themselves 
rejected  the  temporary  provision  for  the  payment  of  quit- 
rents,  and  were  left  with  nothing  but  the  perpetual  agree- 
ment to  pay  for  the  support  of  government. 

For  a  time  after  the  expiration  of  the  temporary  act,  the 
people  seem  to  have  submitted  rather  quietly  to  the  fate 
which  the  worst  of  the  bargain  had  brought  upon  them, 
and  only  timid  objection  was  raised  to  the  collection  of 
the  duty  as  imposed  by  the  law  of  1704.  But  in  the  year 
1739  the  lower  house  was  endeavoring  to  make  a  new 
bargain  with  the  proprietor  for  paying  his  quit-rents,  and 
at  the  same  time  that  house  was  raising  a  grievous  com- 
plaint about  the  oppression  the  people  were  subjected  to 
from  excessive  officers'  fees.  In  the  attempt  to  make  a 
satisfactory  bargain  for  the  payment  of  the  quit-rents,  and 
in  the  attempt  to  bring  about  a  reduction  of  fees,  the 
lower  house  seems  to  have  been  confronted  for  the  first 
time  with  the  strength  which  the  lord  proprietor  derived 
from  the  perpetual  law  for  the  support  of  government. 
The  consequence  was  that  it  then  occurred  to  a  large 
majority  in  the  lower  house  that  they  might  contend  with 


346  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

some  effect  that  the  law  of  1704  was  no  longer  in  force, 
on  the  ground  that  such  a  law,  made  when  the  govern- 
ment of  the  province  was  in  the  crown,  could  not  be  con- 
tinued in  force  upon  the  restoration  of  the  proprietary 
government. 

In  that  year,  therefore,  the  lower  house  said  to  the  gov- 
ernor :  "  We  having  in  the  most  candid  and  serious  man- 
ner taken  into  consideration  the  money  lately  raised  as  a 
duty  upan  tobacco  for  the  support  of  his  Lordship's  Gov- 
ernment, must  acknowledge  ourselves  sensibly  concerned 
to  find  that  12c?.  sterling  per  hogshead  since  September  29, 
1733,  has  been  levied  and  collected  from  the  people  pi  the 
Province  without  any  law  that  we  know  of  to  warrant  the 
same.  We  have  indeed  been  informed  by  the  several 
Naval  Officers  that  they  levy  that  money  by  virtue  of  an 
act  of  1704.  What  light  that  act  hath  hitherto  appeared 
in  to  your  Excellency  we  cannot  say,  but  we  hope  you  have 
considered  it  in  the  manner  we  have  done.  As  to  the 
several  acts  made  for  raising  money  for  the  support  of 
this  Government  at  the  respective  times  when  the  same 
was  in  the  hands  of  the  Proprietary  or  immediately  in  the 
Crown,  you  will  be  persuaded  that  those  made  in  the  one 
have  never  been  deemed  to  extend  to  the  other."1  In 
that  same  year,  also,  as  well  as  in  the  next,  a  bill  was  sent 
to  the  upper  house  which  contained  a  provision  for  con- 
tinuing the  usual  duty  of  twelvepence  per  hogshead  ;  but 
in  that  bill  only  £1000  were  to  be  given  to  the  governor 
as  his  salary,  the  balance  to  be  used  for  the  purchase  of 
arms  and' ammunition,  and  the  duration  of  the  act  was  to 
be  limited  to  three  years. 

From  the  year  1750  it  was  a  standing  resolution  of  the 
same  body  that  the  levying  of  the  duty  in  question  was 
not  warranted  by  law,  and  that  if  it  were  so  warranted 

iL.  H.  J.,  May  30,  1739. 


FINANCE  347 

one-fourth  of  it  ought  to  be  applied,  as  it  was  under  the 
royal  government,  toward  the  purchase  of  arms  and 
ammunition.  In  the  year  1750,  also,  that  house,  in  an 
address  to  the  lord  proprietor,  declared  they  could  not 
conceive  that  by  any  construction  of  the  act  of  1704  the 
lord  proprietor  could  be  meant  or  intended  as  successor  to 
the  crown,  or  that  a  duty  given  for  the  support  of  the 
royal  government  could  mean  or  intend  the  proprietary 
government.  And  they  hoped  the  lord  proprietor  would 
no  longer  continue  to  levy  the  said  duty  or  lay  the  lower 
house  under  the  disagreeable  necessity  of  taking  any  other 
method  of  application  for  redress.1 

On  more  than  one  occasion  some  attempt  was  made 
to  get  a  subscription  for  the  support  of  an  agent  who 
should  bring  this  matter,  as  well  as  that  pertaining  to  the 
fourteen-pence  tonnage  duty,  to  a  hearing  before  the  king 
in  council.2  But  it  is  not  probable  that  there  was  any  real 
desire  to  have  the  case  decided  by  the  king  in  council, 
since  the  people  could  hardly  have  hoped  it  would  be 
decided  in  their  favor.  For,  during  the  last  year  of  the 
royal  government,  there  was  a  general  revision  of  the  laws 
of  the  province,  and,  upon  the  restoration,  all  those  laws 
were  continued  in  force.  Then,  too,  as  under  the  royal 
government,  so,  under  the  proprietary  government,  the 
governor  was  really  in  each  case  named  by  the  crown. 
There  was  but  this  difference  in  that  respect ;  namely, 
under  the  royal  government  the  crown  appointed  the 
governor  during  pleasure,  only,  while  under  the  pro- 
prietary government  the  crown  named  the  lord  pro- 
prietor and  his  heirs  as  hereditary  governors,  giving 
them  the  privilege  of  appointing  a  lieutenant  governor  to 
administer  the  government  in  their  stead.     Therefore,  it 

iL.  H.  J,  June  2,  1750. 

2  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  I,  p.  421  ;  Dulany  Papers. 


348  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

was  held  that,  although  a  law  made  for  a  support  of  the 
lord  proprietary  could  not  be  extended  to  a  support  of 
the  crown,  it  would  not  follow  that  a  law  made  for  a  sup- 
port of  the  crown  could  not  be  extended  to  a  support  of 
the  lord  proprietary.1  With  such  reasons  for  sustaining 
the  lord  proprietor,  at  a  time  when  the  crown,  in  the  royal 
provinces,  was  contending  against  annual  appropriations 
as  the  great  source  of  its  own  weakness,  it  is  not  to  be  sup- 
posed that  the  lord  proprietor  would  have  been  subjected 
to  such  annual  appropriations,  by  the  decision  of  the 
crown  as  to  the  law  of  1704. 

Nevertheless,  although  the  people  had  the  weak  side  of 
the  case,  they  made  much  out  of  it  ;  and  Governor  Sharpe 
complained  that  while  the  lord  proprietor  had  a  clear, 
inviolable,  and  indisputable  right  to  the  duty,  the  peremp- 
tory refusal  by  the  proprietor  to  allow  any  proposal  to 
be  heard  concerning  the  appointment  of  an  agent  for 
the  settlement  of  the  dispute  before  the  king  in  council 
tended  to  confirm  the  people  in  the  belief  that  their  cause 
was  just.2  So  the  outcome  of  it  was  that,  although  the 
case  was  never  brought  to  trial,  it  was  an  important 
source  of  strength  to  the  lower  house  in  the  vigorous 
endeavor  of  that  body  to  curtail  every  other  source  of 
income  to  the  lord  proprietor  or  his  government,  such  as 
an  allowance  to  the  council  and  its  clerk,  fees  to  officers, 
and  license  money,  fines,  and  forfeitness  to  the  lord 
proprietor. 

During  the  years  of  the  most  lively  controversy  over 
that  duty  the  annual  income  from  it  was  about  £1400 
sterling  per  annum.  It  was,  in  the  main,  the  governor's 
salary.  But  while  the  governor  was  obliged  to  pay  out 
of   it  .£200  toward  the  salary  of  Secretary  Calvert,  the 

1  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  I,  p.  24  et  seq. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  433  etseq. 


FINANCE  349 

people  were  further  taxed  £80  per  annum  for  the  pur- 
pose of  paying  the  governor's  house  rejnt.  This  was  not 
all.  Not  satisfied  with  their  merely  paying  his  rent,  the 
people  were  asked  to  build  a  house  for  him.  An  appro- 
priation was  more  than  once  made  for  that  purpose.  But 
the  course  pursued  by  Governor  Bladen,  to  prevail  upon 
the  lower  house  to  make  an  additional  appropriation 
toward  the  building  of  that  house,  was  such  as  to  give 
the  people  one  of  their  most  just  causes  of  complaint,  and 
thereby  added  to  the  force  of  the  attacks  on  the  govern- 
ment. 

As  early  as  the  year  1674  Governor  Charles  Calvert 
offered  to  locate  the  seat  of  government  in  that  county  — 
either  St.  Mary's  or  Anne  Arundel  —  which  should  agree 
to  build  for  him  a  convenient  dwelling  house  of  brick.1  But 
the  house  was  not  built  as  a  result  of  this  offer.  During 
the  period  of  royal  government  and  at  the  time  that  the 
seat  of  it  was  being  removed  from  St.  Mary's  to  Annapo- 
lis, the  lower  house  was  urged  to  grant  money  for  such  a 
building.  But  that  body  then  felt  that  the  people  had 
already  been  put  to  a  great  expense  in  erecting  other 
public  buildings  at  the  new  seat ;  and  not  until  1704  did 
they  even  so  much  as  propose  that  the  threepence  duty 
for  the  purchase  of  arms  and  ammunition  should  be 
applied  to  the  erection  of  the  structure  which  the  gov- 
ernor desired.  As  the  upper  house  could  not  consent  to 
such  an  application  of  that  duty,  another  attempt  to  have 
the  house  built  failed.  In  the  last  year  of  the  royal  gov- 
ernment, while  the  question,  who  had  a  right  to  the 
income  from  licenses  for  ordinaries  was  provoking  a  warm 
dispute,  Governor  Hart  proposed  that  the  money  from 
that  source  be  applied  toward  building  a  governor's  house 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1666  to  1676,  pp. 
371,  377,  378  et  seq. 


350  MARYLAND    AS   A    PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

on  condition  that  another  sum,  equal  to  twice  the  amount 
of  such  license  money,  be  appropriated  for  the  same  pur- 
pose.1 But  as  the  lower  house  would  not  agree  to  this, 
the  governor  could  do  no  more  than  merely  set  aside  the 
license  money  alone,  toward  the  erection  of  the  building 
desired  ;  and  after  the  restoration  of  the  proprietary  gov- 
ernment, even  that  money  was  otherwise  applied. 

Not  until  the  year  1732  did  the  Assembly  ever  make 
an  appropriation  for  the  building.  It  was  in  that  year 
that  the  act  of  assembly  was  passed  for  issuing  ,£90,000 
in  paper  currency,  the  credit  of  which  was  to  be  sup- 
ported by  a  duty  on  tobacco.  Out  of  the  £ 90,000  in  bills 
of  credit,  the  governor  was  to  have  a  sum  not  exceeding 
£3000,  for  the  purchase  of  the  ground  and  the  building 
of  the  house.  Yet  again,  a  dispute  arose  over  the  title  to 
the  land  which  was  desired  for  the  lot ;  and  as  a  conse- 
quence, for  another  ten  years  little  or  no  progress  was 
made  in  this  matter. 

But  in  the  year  1742  Ogle  was  succeeded  in  his  station 
as  governor  by  Thomas  Bladen.  So  happy  were  the  peo- 
ple because,  for  the  first  time,  a  man  born  within  the  prov- 
ince had  been  made  their  governor,  that,  in  the  very  first 
year  of  his  administration,  the  former  appropriation  of 
£3000  was  increased  to  £4000.  The  act  by  which  this 
new  appropriation  was  made,  however,  directed  that  the 
cost  of  the  house  and  lot  should  not  exceed  the  £4000. 

Alas,  the  early  popularity  of  this  native-born  governor 
soon  vanished.  The  land  which  he  selected  for  a  lot  on 
which  to  build,  had  once  been  granted  to  Thomas  Bordley 
and  Thomas  Larbin.  Although  the  patent  for  the  same 
had  been  annulled  by  a  decree  in  chancery,  Stephen  Bord- 
ley, the  son  of  Thomas  Bordley,  had  appealed  the  case. 
Wherefore,  after  the  building  had   begun,  Mr.  Bordley 

i  L.  H.  J.,  May  19,  1715. 


FINANCE  351 

gave  notice  to  the  lower  house  that  he  was  determined, 
if  necessary,  to  carry  the  appeal  to  the  king  in  council, 
and  that  if  the  matter  were  at  last  decided  in  his  favor, 
he  would  claim  not  only  the  land  but  the  house.1 

The  governor  was  at  once  asked  to  give  an  account  of  the 
matter.  In  doing  so,  he  stated  that  he  had  looked  upon 
the  pretended  right  of  Mr.  Bordley  as  insignificant,  yet 
in  view  of  extinguishing  all  claims  and  pretensions  he  had 
offered  to  pay  £200  currency,  which  was  Bordley's  own 
price.  He  further  stated  that  after  the  agreement- had 
been  made,  he  had  let  the  contract  for  the  building, 
and  the  work  had  begun,  before  the  deed  had  been 
drawn  ;  that  then  Bordley  was  so  unreasonable  with 
respect  to  the  deed  that  they  could  not  agree  ;  but  that 
he,  on  his  part,  would  agree  to  any  deed  of  which  the 
lower  house  should  approve.  The  disagreement  with 
respect  to  the  deed  was  that  while  the  governor  insisted 
that  the  land  should  be  warranted  against  Stephen  Bordley 
and  all  heirs  claiming  under  him  or  his  father,  Mr.  Bordley 
insisted  that  it  should  be  warranted  only  against  himself 
and  his  heirs.2  The  lower  house  was  satisfied  with  the 
terms  desired  by  Mr.  Bordley  ;  and  this  controversy  was 
settled,  somewhat  to  the  chagrin  of  the  governor. 

But  that  incompetent  officer  was  about  to  undergo  a 
far  more  severe  trial,  and  the  lower  house  was  about  to  be 
confronted  with  what  had  the  appearance  of  another  de- 
vice for  increasing  the  burden  of  taxation  upon  the  people 
without  the  free  choice  of  their  representatives.  Shortly 
after  the  question  about  the  deed  was  disposed  of,  the 
governor  acquainted  the  lower  house  that,  according  to 
his  estimate,  £2000  over  and  above  what  had  been  appro- 
priated would  yet  be  needed  to  complete  the  house.3    This 

i  L.  H.  J.,  May  4,  1744.  2  Ihid^  May  8,  1744. 

SL.  H.  J.,  May  16,  1744. 


352  MARYLAND   AS    A    PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

was  vexatious  intelligence  to  those  to  whom  it  was  given, 
and  they  asked  to  be  excused  from  giving  the  additional 
sum,  saying  that  although  the  house  might  not  be  so  or- 
namental as  desired,  yet  they  thought  that  with  prudent 
management  it  might  be  finished,  or  nearly  so,  with  the 
sum  already  provided.  After  he  had  been  refused  the 
additional  £2000,  the  governor  asked  for  only  £800  or 
.£900, — a  sum  which  he  thought  barely  sufficient  to  en- 
close the  building  and  thereby  save  it  from  ruin.  But,  by 
a  vote  of  twenty-eight  to  sixteen,  the  lower  house  declined 
to  make  any  further  provision  that  the  upper  house  could 
accept.  Neither  would  they  do  anything  to  make  good  to 
the  governor  about  £900,  which  he  had  expended  of  his 
own. 

In  the  year  1750,  when  Ogle  was  again  governor,  the 
lower  house  was  urged  to  take  action  toward  saving  the 
building  and  toward  paying  Bladen's  claim.  But  that 
body  resolved  not  to  agree  to  burden  the  country  with 
any  further  expense  toward  preserving  or  finishing  the 
house  for  the  use  of  the  governor.  It  also  resolved  that 
Bladen's  claim  was  not  warrantable  either  by  the  rules  of 
law  or  equity,  since  his  conduct  in  the  affair  relative  to 
that  claim  was  contrary  to  and  a  violation  of  the  trust 
and  confidence  reposed  in  him  by  the  people.1  One  year 
later  the  upper  house  told  how  it  was  reported  that  some 
of  the  timbers  in  the  unfinished  building  were  rotten, 
many  of  the  shingles  stolen,  and  other  materials  in  danger 
of  being  rendered  quite  useless,  and  urged  that  something 
be  done  to  prevent  a  total  loss  of  the  money  already  laid 
out.2  But  to  this,  also,  the  lower  house  replied  that  its 
members  had  resolved  for  the  present  not  to  intermeddle 
or  interfere  in  anything  relating  to  the  building,  and  that 

1  Ibid.,  May  18,  1750. 

2  L.  H.  J.,  December  12,  1751. 


FINANCE  353 

they  apprehended  that  the  loss  could  not  be  retrieved, 
nor  the  public  benefited  by  being  at  any  further  expense 
about  it. 

Early  in  Governor  Sharpe's  administration,  Secretary 
Calvert  wrote  that  the  lord  proprietor  so  much  desired 
the  completion  of  the  house  that  he  would  be  disposed  to 
make  a  voluntary  gift  toward  that  end,  did  he  not  think  it 
advisable  that  the  Assembly  should  be  obliged  to  complete 
its  unfinished  work.1  Governor  Sharpe,  however,  had  little 
hope  that  the  Assembly  could  be  prevailed  upon  to  act  in  the 
matter.  He  stated  that  the  building  was  in  such  a  bad  con- 
dition that  he  thought  that  not  less  than  £300  or  £400 
would  be  required  to  put  it  where  it  had  been  left  by  the 
workmen,  and  that  from  .£3000  to  £4000  would  be  required 
to  complete  it.2  The  raising  of  a  part  of  the  necessary 
amount  by  the  sale  of  lottery  tickets  and  by  subscription 
was  considered,  but  nothing  further  was  ever  done  toward 
completing  the  building  for  a  governor's  house.  The 
attempt  of  the  lower  house  to  have  it  finished  as  a  college 
hall,  by  appropriating  the  license  money  from  ordinaries  to 
that  end,  also  failed.3  On  one  of  the  last  days  of  August, 
1766,  the  roof  fell  in;4  and  in  this  condition  it  remained 
until  after  the  proprietary  government  was  overthrown. 
For  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century,  therefore,  it  stood 
as  a  constant  reminder  of  dissension  and  as  conspicuously 
indicative  of  the  diminishing  power  of  the  lord  proprietor. 

The  first  act  of  assembly  for  regulating  ordinaries  was 
passed  in  the  year  1678.  It  required  every  keeper  of  an 
ordinary  to  purchase  annually  a  license,  for  which  two 
thousand  pounds  of  tobacco  were  to  be  paid  if  the  ordi- 

1  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  I,  p.  130. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  56. 

3  Supra,  p.  143. 

4  Maryland  Gazette,  September  4,  1766. 
2a 


354  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

nary  was  in  Annapolis,  otherwise,  only  twelve  hundred 
pounds.  The  act  directed  that  this  tobacco  should  be  paid 
to  the  lord  proprietor.  The  number  of  such  licenses  sold  at 
this  time  was,  of  course,  small ;  but  by  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century  the  number  had  risen  to  more  than  one 
hundred,  and  the  price  of  each  had  been  changed  to  from 
X4  to  <£5  currency. 

Until  the  Revolution  of  1689  the  lord  proprietor  had 
given  the  proceeds  of  the  sale  of  those  licenses  to  his  sec- 
retary. But  ever  after  the  establishment  of  the  royal 
government,  the  lower  house  contended  that  all  such 
money  belonged  to  the  public,  and,  therefore,  that  it 
could  be  used  only  for  such  ends  as  the  Assembly  should 
direct.  A  strong  jealousy  existed  between  Thomas  Cop- 
ley, the  first  royal  governor,  and  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence, 
the  first  royal  secretary.  This  made  Copley  most  willing 
to  assent  to  a  bill  which  directed  that  the  said  license 
money  should  be  paid  to  himself.  At  the  same  time  the 
misused  but  avaricious  Lawrence  incurred  the  enmity  of 
the  whole  province  by  his  mercenary  disposition  of  the 
county  clerkships.  Then,  still  claiming  a  right  to  the 
license  money  as  a  perquisite  of  his  office,  he  made  an 
appeal  to  the  crown,  and  went  to  England  to  prosecute 
the  same.  He  was  successful,  and  during  Governor 
Nicholson's  administration  an  act  of  assembly  gave  the 
money  to  him  as  secretary.  However,  upon  the  expira- 
tion of  that  act,  in  the  year  1699,  the  Assembly  again  took 
it  from  him  and  gave  it  to  the  crown  for  the  support  of 
government.  Again,  the  litigious  Sir  Thomas  asked  the 
crown  to  interpose  its  authority  ;  and,  again,  the  crown 
directed  that  he  should  have  the  money. 

This  time,  however,  instead  of  complying  with  that 
direction,  the  Assembly  again  passed  a  bill  for  continu- 
ing the  application  of  that  money  according  to  the  law  of 


FINANCE  355 

1699,  and  then  petitioned  the  crown  to  assent  to  it.  In- 
stead of  granting  the  prayer  of  the  petitioners,  the  crown 
repeatedly  urged  them  to  pass  the  bill  so  as  to  make  the 
money  payable  to  Lawrence.  But  as  late  as  the  year 
1708,  even  members  of  the  upper  house  —  the  crown's  own 
appointees  —  agreed,  in  conference  with  members  from  the 
other  house,  that  Lawrence's  claim  was  not  a  valid  one, 
and  that  a  full  account  of  the  matter  should  be  sent  to  the 
crown  for  its  better  information.1  That  account  was  pre- 
pared, but  there  is  no  proof  that  it  was  ever  presented.  At 
any  rate,  the  crown  continued  more  persistently  than  ever 
to  urge  Lawrence's  claim,"  and  the  upper  house  at  last  vig- 
orously urged  the  lower  house  to  yield.  But  the  latter 
body  stood  firm.  It  declared  again  and  again  that  Law- 
rence had  no  right  to  that  license  money.  It  declared 
that  it  conceived  it  to  be  most  contrary  to  right  and  rea- 
son, and  extremely  odious  to  the  people  to  have  a  tax 
imposed  on  a  part  of  them  to  the  enriching  of  only  one, 
who  not  so  much  as  set  pen  to  paper  for  it.2  It  proposed 
that  if  it  was  impossible  to  pass  an  act  for  regulating 
ordinaries  without  allowing  such  an  invalid  claim,  then 
ordinaries  should  be  made  subject  to  the  laws  of  the 
mother  country ;  and  it  successfully  sought  the  appoint- 
ment of  an  agent  to  present  the  case  before  the  crown. 

The  agent  was  not  entirely  successful,  and  with  the 
arrival  of  John  Hart  as  governor,  a  new  claimant  for  the 
money  appeared.  Governor  Hart  stated  that,  as  he  was 
about  to  come  to  Maryland,  he  had  inquired  of  Lord  Balti- 
more concerning  the  right  to  the  money  accruing  from  the 
license  of  ordinaries. 

He  said  that  in  reply  Baltimore  had  told  him  the  license 
money  had  been  given  to  the  secretary  not  as  secretary, 
but  as  a  relative,   and   that,  should   the  government  be 

1  U.  H.  J.,  December  3,  1708,  2  L.  H.  J.,  October.  27,  1709.  x 


356  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

restored  to  him,  he  should  take  that  money  as  his  own. 
From  this  Hart  contended  that  the  right  to  the  money  in 
question  was  neither  in  the  secretary  nor  in  the  country, 
but  that  it  was  in  the  crown.1  In  accordance  therewith, 
he  made  the  offer  with  respect  to  applying  it  toward 
building  a  house  for  the  governor,  with  the  result  already 
noted. 

But  the  restoration  of  the  proprietary  government  soon 
followed,  and  the  lord  proprietor  and  his  guardian  first 
gave  the  license  money  to  the  two  secretaries,  and  then 
requested  the  Assembly  to  pass  an  act  appropriating  it 
to  that  use.  At  first  the  lower  house  refused  to  do  any- 
thing of  the  kind,  and  gave  as  a  reason  for  its  refusal 
that,  against  the  most  pressing  importunities  of  the  late 
secretary,  with  an  order  from  the  queen  in  council  in  his 
favor,  preceding  assemblies  had  maintained  that  such 
license  money  could  not  be  imposed  or. levied  without  the 
consent  of  the  people.  That  body  desired  that  instead  of 
giving  it  to  the  secretaries,  it  should  be  used  for  the 
support  of  schools.  Finally,  however,  a  compromise  was 
made  by  passing  a  bill  for  giving  the  money  to  the  sec- 
retaries with  a  preamble  in  which,  after  referring  to  the 
past  debates,  and  expressing  gratitude  for  what  the  lord 
proprietor  had  done  for  the  Protestants,  he  was  asked  to 
be  pleased  to  accept  of  the  readiness  of  the  Assembly  to 
give  him  the  license  money  as  a  grateful  acknowledgment 
of  the  benefits  received  for  his  administration. 

That  bill  became  a  law  and  was  continued  in  force  by 
successive  revivals  until  the  year  1739.  But  in  that  year 
of  loud  complaint  against  the  lord  proprietor,  the  bill  for 
continuing  it  was  lost  in  the  lower  house  by  a  vote  of 
nineteen  to  twenty-six.  The  third  intercolonial  war  then 
followed ;  and  from  the  year  1740  until  the  outbreak  of 

i  U.  H.  J.,  May  19,  1715. 


FINANCE  357 

the  fourth  intercolonial  war  that  license  money  was  ap- 
propriated toward  the  redemption  of  bills  of  credit  issued 
for  his  Majesty's  service  in  carrying  on  war.  Scarcely  had 
the  new  lord  proprietor,  Frederick,  in  the  year  1754,  com- 
plained of  such  past  appropriations  as  a  violation  of  his 
property  rights,  and  instructed  his  governor  to  pass  no 
such  acts  for  the  future,1  when  the  news  came  of  Wash- 
ington's repulse  at  the  Great  Meadows.  Thereupon,  con- 
trary to  his  instructions,  the  governor,  with  the  advice  of 
the  council,  assented  to  a  bill  making  a  further  applica- 
tion of  the  license  money  to  military  objects.2  Later,  just 
after  Braddock's  defeat,  the  lord  proprietor  himself,  tem- 
porarily waiving  his  claim,  authorized  the  governor  to 
assent  to  a  bill  giving  the  license  money  as  an  aid  against 
the  enemy ;  and  so,  until  the  year  1763,  the  money  con- 
tinued to  be  applied  toward  the  redemption  of  bills  of 
credit  that  were  issued  under  the  provisions  of  the  supply 
bills  passed  on  this  occasion. 

As  that  year  approached,  the  lower  house,  still  holding 
that  the  lord  proprietor  had  no  right  to  it,  endeavored 
to  have  the  money  applied  toward  the  founding  of  a 
college;  but  to  such  a  proposition  the  lord  proprietor 
would  not  even  listen.  However,  there  had  for  some 
time  been  little  support  to  this  proprietary  claim.  When, 
prior  to  Braddock's  defeat,  that  claim  had  several  times 
been  the  insurmountable  obstacle  to  the  passing  of  a 
supply  bill,  Governor  Sharpe  was  tempted  to  cry  out 
against  it.  In  the  year  1755,  in  a  letter  to  his  brother 
John,  asking  for  an  opinion  as  to  the  matter,  he  showed 
that  there  was  much  legal  sentiment  in  the  province  un- 
favorable to  the  said  claim.3     One  year  later,  in  a  letter 

1  Gilrnore  Papers. 

2  Supra,  pp.  321,  322. 

8  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  I,  p.  235. 


358  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

to  his  brother  William,  he  complained  that  had  his  hands 
not  been  tied  down  by  such  instructions  as  empty  coffers 
seemed  to  have  dictated,  he  should  long  ago  have  had  a 
regiment  of  Maryland  troops  under  his  command.1 

So  little  was  to  be  said  in  support  of  the  attitude  of 
the  lord  proprietor  on  this  matter,  that  the  upper  house 
was  forced  to  reject  the  bills  from  the  lower  house  without 
giving  much  reason  for  so  doing ;  while  it  was  vain  for 
the  governor  to  urge  the  lower  house  to  pass  supply 
bills  that  did  not  appropriate  the  money  in  dispute.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  committee  on  grievances  reported  that 
it  conceived  that  the  clause  in  the  secretary's  commission, 
which  gave  that  officer  the  power  of  taking  to  himself  the 
advantage  of  granting  licenses  for  ordinaries,  was  creating 
a  monopoly  and,  therefore,  was  infringing  the  rights  and 
privileges  of  the  people  of  Maryland.  The  lower  house 
resolved  that  the  lord  proprietor  had  no  right  to  impose 
or  levy  by  way  of  fine,  tax,  or  duty  any  sum  of  money  on 
any  person  whatsoever,  or  take  to  himself  any  such  fine, 
tax,  or  duty  without  the  consent  of  the  representatives  in 
Assembly.  That  body  further  resolved  that  the  lord  pro- 
prietor by  accepting  the  money  accruing  from  the  license 
of  ordinaries  as  a  gift  from  the  people,  in  the  way  he  did 
in  the  year  1717,  thereby  disclaimed  all  pretensions  of 
right  to  that  money  by  prerogative  ;  and  that  by  the 
continuance  of  that  law  for  many  years  he  had  acquiesced 
in  the  right  of  the  people  to  dispose  of  the  said  money. 
The  members  of  the  same  body  also  declared  to  the 
governor  that  they  were  so  firmly  of  the  opinion  that  the 
money  in  question  belonged  by  undoubted  right  to  the 
country  that  nothing  could  ever  induce  them  to  do  any- 
thing which  might  weaken  that  right.2 

1  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  I,  p.  399  et  seq. 

2  L.  H.  J.,  March  25,  1755. 


FINANCE  359 

Action  against  this  claim  went  farther  than  the  lower 
house.  In  the  year  1756  so  many  petitions  from  the 
counties  complaining  of  grievances,  extortion,  and  oppres- 
sion —  of  which  the  dispute  about  the  license  money  was 
the  immediate  occasion  —  poured  into  Annapolis  that  the 
council  advised  the  governor  to  send  circular  letters  to 
the  magistrates  of  the  several  counties  to  inquire  about  all 
seditious  reports.  However,  the  passing  of  the  supply 
bill  of  this  year,  by  which  that  money  was  mortgaged 
until  the  year  1763,  dispelled  the  danger  of  an  uprising.1 

In  the  year  1764,  when  the  lower  house  proposed  to 
appropriate  the  money  in  question  toward  completing  the 
governor's  house  for  use  as  a  college  building,  a  majority 
of  the  upper  house  acknowledged  to  the  governor  that 
they  thought  it  could  not  be  applied  to  a  better  purpose. 
By  this  time,  also,  Daniel  Dulany  had  declared  that  he  had 
no  idea  of  a  right  without  a  remedy,  and  that,  therefore, 
he  did  not  see  how  his  Lordship  could  support  any  claim 
or  pretension  to  such  an  emolument  as  that  arising  from 
licenses  for  ordinaries.  But  in  reply  to  these  views,  the 
lord  proprietor,  as  if  it  were  a  matter  of  course,  only 
blindly  complained  of  the  spirit  of  innovation,  and  again 
instructed  the  governor  to  assent  to  no  bill  whereby  his 
sole  right  and  privilege  of  granting  licenses  for  ordinaries, 
or  any  other  license  whatsoever,  should  in  any  wise  be 
invaded  or  drawn  into  question,  without  a  clause  therein 
to  prevent  the  same  from  taking  effect  until  he  had 
assented  to  it.2 

In  this  obstinate  course,  the  lord  proprietor  was,  how- 
ever, no  longer  to  have  the  support  of  the  governor,  the 
council,  or  the  upper  house.  When  the  above  instruction 
was  laid  before  the  council,  that  board  appointed  a  com- 
mittee to  consider   the   matter.     That  committee,  in  its 

1  C.  R.,  May  22,  1756.  2  Ihid^  May  23,  1766. 


360  MARYLAND    AS    A    PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

report,  gave  it  as  its  opinion  that  neither  by  the  charter 
nor  by  any  act  of  assembly  was  the  lord  proprietor  en- 
titled to  the  sole  right  of  granting,  ordering,  and  regu- 
lating the  licenses  of  ordinary  keepers.  It  stated  that  it 
conceived  that  any  person,  by  the  common  law  of  Eng- 
land, might  follow  the  trade  of  ordinary  keeper,  as  well 
as  any  other  trade,  without  the  license  of  the  crown,  and 
that  the  charter  did  not  give  the  lord  proprietor  a  higher 
prerogative  than  belonged  to  the  crown.  Consequently, 
that  committee  held  that  "if  the  lord  proprietor  had  a 
right"  he  must  have  some  legal  remedy  to  compel  ordinary 
keepers  to  obtain  licenses ;  but  no  such  remedy  was 
known  to  that  committee.1 

'  When  that  report  had  been  made,  the  council  informed 
the  governor  that  they  were  unanimously  of  the  opinion 
that  the  lord  proprietor  was  in  no  way  entitled  to  the 
license  money  accruing  from  ordinaries,  and  expressed  the 
apprehension  that  if  his  Lordship  should  still  insist  upon 
his  claim,  it  would  very  much  tend  to  the  obstruction  of 
public  business  and  be  productive  of  very  great  dissatis- 
faction. The  governor  forwarded  all  these  opinions  to 
the  lord  proprietor,  and  at  last  the  eyes  of  the  blind  were 
opened.  The  claim  that  had  stood  in  the  way  of  passing 
several  supply  bills  was  withdrawn  as  gracefully  as  pos- 
sible ;  and  from  the  year  1768  there  was  an  act  of  assembly 
for  licensing  ordinary  keepers,  hawkers,  pedlers,  and  petty 
chapmen  which  directed  that  the  money  arising  thereon 
should  be  applied  toward  defraying  the  public  charge. 

Similar  to  the  controversy  over  the  claim  to  the  license 
money,  was  that  over  the  right  to  fines  and  forfeitures. 
Until  the  year  1739,  fines  and  forfeitures  arising  on  the 
breach  of  almost  any  one  of  the  penal  laws  were  made 
payable,  by  each  of  such  laws,  to  the  lord  proprietor  ;  and 

1  C.  R.,  May  27,  1766. 


FINANCE  361 

although  some  of  those  fines  were  given  to  the'" clerk  of  the 
council,  no  account  of  them  was  rendered  to  the  public. 
To  this  the  lower  house  at  last  raised* an  objection ;  and, 
from  the  year  1739,  whenever  a  bill  containing  a  provi- 
sion for  any  penal  imposition  was  before  the  Assembly, 
the  lower  house  insisted,  usually  with  success,  that  the 
fine  should  be  made  payable  for  the  support  of  govern- 
ment.1 From  the  year  1745  that  body  repeatedly  re- 
quested the  governor  to  order  laid  before  it  an  account  of 
all  fines  and  forfeitures  that  had  arisen,  from  the  common 
law  as  well  as  from  acts  of  assembly,  and  of  how  the  same 
had  been  applied  toward  the  support  of  government.  In 
justification  of  its  calling  for  such  an  account,  that  body 
declared  that  it  conceived  the  officers  of  the  proprietor 
had,  under  the  authority  of  the  laws  of  the  province, 
taken  those  fines  only  in  trust  and  for  the  benefit  of  the 
people  among  whom  they  were  levied  ;  and  that,  there- 
fore, the  lord  proprietor  was  not  at  liberty  to  put  them 
into  his  own  pocket. 

After  the  governor  had  contended  that  the  lord  proprie- 
tor had  as  good  a  right  to  the  common  law  fines  as  the 
king  had  to  those  arising  in  the  courts  of  Westminster, — 
for  which  he  was  not  accountable  to  Parliament,  —  the 
lower  house  answered  that  the  king  supported  his  own 
courts,  whereas  in  Maryland  the  people,  and  not  the  lord 
proprietor,  supported  the  courts.2  Again,  in  the  year  1766, 
a  committee  of  the  lower  house  reported  that  the  custom 
of  the  English  kings  had  been  to  use  the  fines  for  the  sup- 
port of  government,  and  that  when  those  fines  became  insuf- 
ficient for  that  purpose,  Parliament  had  taken  care  to  have 
an  account  rendered  of  all  the  crown  revenues.  And  then 
the  report  continued  as  follows  :    "  Nor  ought  the   Pro- 

1  Gilmore  Papers. 

2  L.  H.  J.,  August  20,  23,  and  September  2,  1745. 


362  MARYLAND    AS    A    PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

prietor  to  expect  the  people  here  to  support  the  civil  Gov- 
ernment in  every  branch  thereof,  whilst  he  disposes  at  his 
will  and  pleasure  of  all  the  revenues  appropriated  by  the 
Constitution  of  the  Mother  Country  to  public  uses.  And 
although  our  Ancestors  did  very  improvidently  in  the 
infancy  of  the  Country,  when  these  incomes  and  revenues 
of  the  Lord  Proprietary  arising  from  the  Courts  of  Jus- 
tice or  otherwise  were  inconsiderable,  make  a  perpetual 
provision  for  many  of  those  expenses  ;  yet  when  the  peo- 
ple are  called  upon  for  a  further  supply  toward  the  sup- 
port of  any  of  the  officers  of  his  Lordship's  Government 
not  provided  for  by  perpetual  law,  your  Committee  are  of 
opinion  that  in  such  case  the  people  have  a  right  inherent 
in  the  Constitution  to  call  on  his  Lordship  or  his  Governor 
to  render  an  account  of  the  monies  arising  from  those 
revenues."1 

Although  the  account  which  was  asked  for  was  not 
given,  the  lower  house  made  investigation  for  the  purpose 
of  ascertaining  its  amount,  and  several  times  refused  to 
allow  claims  on  the  ground  that  they  ought  to  be  paid 
out  of  the  money  arising  from  fines  and  forfeitures.  On 
that  ground,  Governor  Sharpe  was  refused  payment  of 
XI 20  sterling  that  he  had  given  for  carrying  letters  and 
sending  expresses  for  his  Majesty's  service  during  war 
time.2  Likewise  in  the  dispute  over  paying  the  clerk  of 
the  council,  the  lower  house  contended  that  he  should  be 
sufficiently  paid  out  of  the  money  arising  from  fines  and 
forfeitures. 

During  the  eighteenth  century,  the  ill  feeling  of  the 
lower  house  toward  the  members  of  the  council  usually 
exceeded  that  of  the  same  house  toward  either  the  lord 
proprietor  or  the  governor.     As  a  consequence,  no  oppor- 

i  L.  H.  J.,  November  15,  1766. 

2  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  I,  p.  395. 


FINANCE 

tunity  of  curtailing  the  income  of  the  council  was  ever 
lost.  From  the  year  1671  to  the  Revolution  of  1689, 
the  council  was  probably  paid  out  of  the  tobacco  duty 
levied  for  the  support  of  government.  But  during  the 
period  of  royal  government,  all  of  the  tobacco  duty  being 
applied  to  other  purposes,  that  board  was  paid  out  of  the 
poll  tax  the  same  when  sitting  as  a  council  as  when  sit- 
ting as  an  upper  house.  Yet,  while  their  pay  as  an  upper 
house  was  demanded  by  a  perpetual  law,  their  pay  as  a 
council  was  required  by  nothing  but  a  precedent,  which 
was  liable  to  be  broken  whenever  the  ill  feeling  toward 
them  should  become  strong  in  the  lower  house. 

Such  a  feeling  was  provoked  the  very  year  in  which 
the  proprietary  government  was  restored.  For  in  that 
year  it  was  learned  that  Edward  Lloyd  —  who  had  been 
president  of  the  council  during  the  five  years  from  1709 
to  1714,  when  the  province  was  without  a  governor  — 
had  taken  both  regular  pay  as  a  councillor  and  one-half 
the  regular  pay  of  a  governor.  The  lower  house  held 
that  as  president  of  the  council  Lloyd  had  been,  by 
instructions  from  the  crown,  constituted  a  body  distinct 
from  the  council,  and  that,  therefore,  while  he  received 
one-half  the  regular  pay  of  a  governor,  he  was  not  entitled 
to  further  pay  as  a  councillor.  They  claimed  that  for 
each  of  the  five  years  an  allowance  as  councillor  had  been 
made  to  him  only  because  he  had  expressed  doubt  about 
his  receiving  any  of  the  salary  usually  paid  to  a  governor. 
When,  therefore,  they  learned  that  he  had  been  paid  both 
as  president  of  the  council  and  as  ordinary  councillor, 
they  unanimously  resolved  that  he  should  pay  back  to  the 
public  the  £  52  13s.  6d.  and  29,580  pounds  of  tobacco,  which 
he  had  received  as  a  councillor  during  those  five  years.1 
But  the  upper  house,  although  acknowledging  that  they 

i  L.  H.  J.,  July  20,  1716  ;  also  August  3,  1716. 


364  MARYLAND    AS    A    PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

thought  it  would  have  been  more  generous  in  Lloyd  not 
to  have  taken  pay  as  a  councillor,  contended  that  he  was 
a  member  of  the  council  all  the  time  he  had  acted  as  its 
president,  and,  therefore,  that  he  was  entitled  to  all  that 
he  had  received.  Moreover,  Lloyd  obtained  a  letter  from 
the  board  of  trade  stating  that  what  he  had  received  was 
his  right.1  The  result  was  that  after  the  controversy  had 
been  continued  for  about  three  years,  Lloyd  died,  and  the 
money  and  tobacco  in  question  were  never  refunded  by 
his  widow. 

The  course  pursued  by  Lloyd  seems,  however,  to  have 
caused  the  lower  house  to  give  more  attention  to  the 
question  of  paying  the  entire  council.  In  the  year  1716 
that  body  ordered  its  committee  on  laws  to  ascertain 
how  the  members  of  the  council  had  been  paid  previous 
to  the  year  1688.  At  the  request  of  the  committee,  the 
matter  w;as  deferred  till  the  next  session,  when  it  was 
intrusted  to  the  committee  on  accounts.  But  the  report, 
when  given,  told  how  from  1671  to  1688  a  duty  of  twelve- 
pence  per  hogshead  had  been  given  to  the  lord  proprietor 
to  enable  him  in  some  measure  to  defray  the  expenses  of 
government,  and  in  particular  to  allow  convenient  salaries 
to  the  governor  and  council.2  The  same  committee  was 
then  directed  to  pursue  its  investigation  during  the  period 
of  the  royal  government.  It  did  so.  And  after  pointing 
out  that  by  the  act  for  ascertaining  the  allowances  of 
councillors  and  delegates,  no  allowance  was  made  to  the 
council  out  of  assembly  time,  it  asked  the  house  for  direc- 
tion. But  the  matter  was  referred  to  the  next  session, 
and  was  not  taken  up  again  until  the  year  1723.  Then 
hesitation  ceased.  By  that  time  dissatisfaction  with  the 
bargain  for  paying  quit-rents  had  begun  to  arise,  and  the 
question  of  English  statutes,  as  well  as  the  question  of 
i  L.  H.  J.,  May  30,  1719.  2  Ibid^  May  31>  1717- 


FINANCE  365 

officers'  fees,  was  arousing  the  ire  of  the  lower  house.  On 
the  motion  of  its  committee  on  accounts  that  body  resolved 
that  no  allowance  be  made  to  any  members  of  the  council 
for  their  attendance  at  that  board  out  of  assembly  time, 
except  when  it  should  sit  as  a  court  of  appeals. 

A  vigorous  controversy  then  ensued.  The  lower  house 
had  the  law  on  its  side  ;  and  the  members  of  that  body 
seemed  to  feel  that,  in  taxing  the  people  for  the  support 
of  the  council,  they  were  giving  aid  to  the  enemy  of 
liberty.  Besides,  they  held  that,  as  was  done  from  1671 
to  1685,  so  now,  the  lord  proprietor  ought  to  pay  his 
council  out  of  the  duty  given  him  for  the  support  of  gov- 
ernment. The  upper  house,  on  the  other  hand,  had 
nothing  but  precedent  on  its  side.  But  its  members 
contended  that  the  interest  of  the  lord  proprietor  -and  the 
interest  of  the  people  were  one  and  inseparable  ;  that 
they  had  the  welfare  of  the  province  as  much  at  heart 
when  sitting  as  his  Lordship's  council  as  when  sitting  as 
an  upper  house  of  the  Assembly  ;  and  that  they  had  as 
good  a  right  to  refuse  the  allowance  to  the  lower  house 
as  the  lower  house  had  to  refuse  theirs  as  a  council.1  So 
disturbed  was  the  government  over  this  refusal  of  the 
lower  house,  that  the  governor  could  not  close  the  session 
without  taking  part  in  the  dispute.  But  his  plea  was 
simply  that  the  generosity  of  the  lord  proprietor  was 
deserving  of  a  grateful  return  from  the  people.  He  said  : 
"  His  Lordship  has  generously  sacrificed  his  private  inter- 
est for  the  public  good.  The  most  tender  endearing 
father  could  not  do  more  for  his  own  private  family.  As 
his  Lordship  is  so  good  to  the  public,  there  ought  to  be 
a  grateful  acknowledgment  of  his  favors."2 

The  lower  house,  however,  stood  firm.  The  council 
was  obliged  to  ask  the  lord  proprietor  to  devise  some 

i  U.  H.  J.,  October,  1723.       2  Ibid.,  October  26,  1723. 


366    MARYLAND  AS  A  PROPRIETARY  PROVINCE 

other  way  to  pay  them  for  their  services.  Instead  of 
doing  so,  he  urged  the  lower  house  to  make  the  usual 
allowance.  Because  of  this  the  controversy  was  continued 
with  renewed  vigor  in  the  year  1725.  The  several  mes- 
sages of  that  year  between  the  two  houses  contained  much 
bitter  railing  with  respect  to  the  matter.  In  one  of  the 
last  of  them  the  lower  house  said  :  "  We  have  done  our 
duty  in  raising  a  sufficient  support  for  all  the  necessary 
uses  of  the  government,  and  are  under  no  ties  of  duty  to 
raise  more  because  those  that  are  raised  are  not  applied 
to  your  good  liking,  once  paid  well  paid.  His  Lordship 
who  employs  you  is  paid  by  the  people  and  'tis  no  less 
than  unreasonable  for  you  to  insist  on  further  dues  from 
the  people  for  the  same  service."  * 

For  ten  years  from  the  date  of  this  message  the  upper 
house  did  not  much  urge  its  claim,  and  went  without  pay  as 
a  council.  But  during  one  of  the  last  of  those  years  the 
controversy  over  English  statutes  was  settled,  and  the  lord 
proprietor's  visit  to  the  province  had  contributed  much 
toward  a  better  feeling.  Accordingly,  under  these  more 
favorable  conditions,  the  upper  house,  in  the  year  1735,  re- 
newed its  old  claim.  It  met  with  no  success  that  year,  and 
the  outlook  was  no  better  the  next,  until  that  house  refused 
to  pass  the  journal  of  accounts  unless  the  regular  allow- 
ance was  made  to  the  council.  The  lower  house  held  out 
a  while  longer.  But,  again,  the  upper  house  declared  in 
yet  bolder  terms  that  it  would  never  pass  the  journal  of 
accounts  without  the  regular  allowance  for  the  council.2 
Finally,  the  lower  house  yielded  so  far  as  to  allow  the 
claim  for  that  year  and  the  year  immediately  preceding. 

For  the  next  eleven  years,  also,  such  an  allowance  was 
made.  But  the  controversy  over  officers'  fees  was  re- 
newed.    So,  in  1745,  when  the  question  was  put  in  the 

1  U.  H.  J.,  November  2,  1725.  2Ibid.,  May  4,  1736. 


FINANCE  367 

lower  house  whether  the  council's  allowance  should  be 
made,  the  affirmative  received  but  twenty-seven  votes, 
while  the  negative  received  twenty-two.  Only  two  years 
later,  the  year  in  which  officers'  fees  were  made  subject 
to  law,  that  allowance  was  made  for  the  last  time.  From 
the  year  1748  to  the  year  1756  inclusive,  the  upper  house 
would  not  pass  the  journal  of  accounts  without  the  allow- 
ance in  question.  But  this  time  the  lower  house  chose 
to  let  the  journal  go  unpassed,  and  their  own  services  and 
other  public  dues  go  unpaid  rather  than  yield  to  the 
council's  claim.  Still  further,  from  1750,  the  allowance 
was  refused  not  only  to  the  council,  but  also  to  the  same 
persons  when  sitting  as  a  court  of  appeals.  The  reasons 
for  not  making  the  allowance  were  at  this  time  even 
stronger  than  they  had  been  in  the  year  1723.  For  it 
was  now  held  that  the  services  of  the  council  were  either 
relative  to  the  lord  proprietor's  private  affairs  or  to  mat- 
ters of  government.  If  to  the  former,  then  it  was  said  to 
be  plain  that  the  people  ought  not  to  be  burdened  to  such 
an  end.  If  to  the  latter,  it  was  said  to  be  equally  plain 
that  they  ought  not  thus  to  be  burdened  because  already 
by  many  acts  of  assembly  fines  and  forfeitures  were  given 
to  his  Lordship  for  the  support  of  government,  and  also 
because  the  duty  of  twelvepence  per  hogshead  on  all 
tobacco  exported  out  of  the  province  was  being  collected 
and  paid  to  his  Lordship  under  an  act  expressly  giving 
it  for  the  support  of  government.1  Lastly,  it  was  now 
held  that  such  an  allowance  was  implicitly  denied  by  the 
act  for  ascertaining  councillors'  and  delegates'  allowances. 
In  the  year  1756  the  upper  house  gave  up  the  contest, 
or,  waiving  their  claim,  passed  the  journal  of  accounts 
without  the  insertion  of  the  allowance  so  long  contended 
for  ;  and  thereafter  the  claim  was  not  urged. 

i  U.  H.  J.,  November  16,  1753. 


368         MARYLAND    AS    A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

But  before  the  dispute  with  respect  to  the  whole  coun- 
cil had  ended,  another  had  arisen  with  respect  to  the 
clerk  of  that  board.  The  lower  house  knew  that  this 
servant  of  the  government  was  receiving  an  income  out 
of  the  fines  and  forfeitures,  and  they  held  that  any  fur- 
ther pay  to  him  ought  to  be  given  by  the  lord  proprietor 
out  of  the  twelvepence  duty  for  the  support  of  govern- 
ment. Above  all,  they  contended  that  the  people  ought 
by  no  means  to  be  further  taxed  in  order  to  pay  him  a 
fixed  salary,  but  that,  at  the  most,  he  should  be  paid  only 
for  particular  services  after  he  had  rendered  an  account. 
To  the  giving  of  such  an  account,  however,  the  upper 
house  objected  because  thereby  the  work  of  the  council 
would  be  made  too  public. 

As  early  as  the  year  1739,  the  refusal  of  the  lower  house 
to  allow  certain  extra  charges  of  the  council  prevented 
the  journal  of  accounts  from  passing.  Then,  from  1747 
to  1756,  a  fixed  allowance  to  the  clerk  of  the  council 
seems  to  have  been  almost  as  objectionable  to  the  lower 
house  as  was  an  allowance  to  the  whole  council ;  and  in 
1756  that  house  said  that  to  make  such  an  allowance  for 
services  annually  performed  in  compliance  with  laws, 
without  any  account  of  the  services  ever  being  laid  before 
them,  was  a  method  of  expending  the  people's  money  to 
which  they  could  never  agree.1  Yet,  although  the  upper 
house  yielded  that  year  as  to  their  own  allowance  as  a 
council,  with  respect  to  the  allowance  of  the  clerk,  they, 
at  that  time,  said,  "  To  speak  plainly,  which  best  becomes 
our  station,  we  insist  on  your  making  him  the  usual  allow- 
ance, for  we  are  determined  never  to  give  it  up."2  The 
declaration  of  such  a  determination  had  an  effect.  For 
the  lower  house  yielded  so  far  as  to  agree  to  the  allowance 
up  to  date.  But  at  the  same  time  that  body  resolved 
i  L.  H.  J.,  May  1,  1756.  2  md^  May  4?  1756- 


FINANCE  369 

that  for  the  future  no  such  allowance  should  be  made 
except  on  having  a  particular  account  laid  before  them 
by  the  clerk  of  the  public  services  by  him  done,  and  that 
then  they  would  allow  only  what  appeared  reasonable.1 

In  accordance  with  that  resolution  no  allowance  was 
made  to  the  clerk  for  the  next  seven  years  ;  and  as  a 
consequence  no  journal  of  accounts  was  passed,  and  hence 
no  public  debts  were  paid.  Moreover,  as  those  seven 
years  were  years  of  war,  and  the  pay  of  the  militia  fell 
largely  into  arrears,  the  situation  was  all  the  more  serious. 
Both  houses  of  Assembly,  therefore,  began  to  approach  the 
question  in  earnest.  In  the  year  1763  the  lower  house 
said  to  the  upper  house  :  "  Your  Honors  no  doubt  well 
know  that  the  monies  received  by  the  Proprietary  from 
the  people  of  this  province  for  the  support  of  government 
(whether  justly  or  not  alters  not  the  case)  are  much  more 
than  sufficient,  after  all  other  expenses  to  which  they 
ought  to  be  applied  are  defrayed,  to  make  the  Clerk  of 
the  Privy  Council  a  full  compensation  for  his  services  ; 
and  we  cannot  imagine  but  that  his  Lordship  will  be  gen- 
erous enough  to  do  it,  as  his  salary  stands  upon  the  same 
foundation  with  your  Honor's  allowance  as  a  Privy  Coun- 
cil, the  claims  of  which  you  have  thought  proper  lately 
not  to  contend  about.  Public  credit  is  reduced  to  so 
low  an  ebb  that  we  think  the  world  must  look  upon  it  as 
the  highest  injustice  in  your  Honors  further  to  postpone 
the  payment  of  the  public  debt  because  we  will  not  tax  the 
people  for  the  payment  of  a  salary  to  the  Clerk  of  the 
Privy  Council,  who  we  do  unanimously  contend  ought 
together  with  your  Honors  as  Privy  Councillors  to  be 
satisfied  out  of  the  moneys  collected  by  the  Proprietary 
from  the  people  for  the  support  of  the  Government  of  this 
Province."2     Farther  on  in  the  same  message,  an  offer 

1 L  .H.  J.,  May  15,  1756.  2  75 ^#j  November  25,  1763. 

2b 


370  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

was  again  made  to  allow  the  clerk  for  such  of  his  charges 
as  should  appear  reasonable  after  he  should  have  laid  a  satis- 
factory account  of  them  before  the  lower  house.  But  on 
this  occasion  the  upper  house  would  make  no  concession. 
Two  years  later  the  situation  was  brought  nearer  to  a 
crisis  when  it  was  reported  that  several  hundred  men, 
many  of  them  armed  with  guns  and  tomahawks,  were 
about  to  march  to  Annapolis  in  order  to  remove  the  ob- 
stacle to  the  payment  of  the  public  creditors,  first,  by  com- 
pelling the  clerk  of  the  council  to  relinquish  his  claim 
with  a  threat  to  pull  down  his  house  if  he  did  not,  and, 
then,  by  forcing  the  upper  house  to  pass  the  journal  with- 
out the  allowance  in  dispute.1  It  was  said  that,  upon  the 
mere  hearing  of  this  report,  the  clerk  was  so  terrified  that 
he  desired  the  upper  house  to  waive  his  claim.  But  al- 
though some  of  the  men  did  appear  in  the  city,  no  vio- 
lence was  done,  and  the  upper  house  continued  firm  during 
their  presence.2  However,  only  a  few  days  later,  the 
upper  house  proposed  the  passage  of  an  act  for  paying  an 
agent  for  each  house  who  should  lay  the  subject-matter 
of  the  controversy  before  the  king  in  council  ;  and  to  put 
a  stop  to  the  complaints  from  the  public  creditors,  the 
same  house  proposed  that  all  should  be  paid  except  the 
members  of  the  two  houses  and  the  clerk  of  the  council, 
who  should  wait  until  a  decision  of  the  question  by  the 
king  in  council  had  been  received.  But  to  this  propo- 
sition, the  lower  house  replied  :  "  Suppose  the  matter 
should  be  determined  in  our  favor  by  the  King  and 
Council,  as  we  really  think  it  would,  ought  the  country  to 
pay  the  expense  of  a  government  agent?  You  might  as 
well  contend  for  the  propriety  of  a  man's  being  obliged, 
before  he  should  be  allowed  to  prosecute  or  defend  his 

1  L.  H.  J.,  December  10,  1765. 

2  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  253. 


FINANCE  371 

right,  to  supply  his  adversary  with  money  to  carry  on  the 
contest  against  himself."1 

Again,  the  next  year,  1766,  the  lower  house  referred  to 
the  distressed  circumstances  of  the  province,  which  were 
ascribed  to  the  destitution  of  many  public  creditors  and 
to  the  great  need  of  a  circulating  medium.  In  view  of 
such  alleged  conditions  that  house  asked  for  a  conference. 
Then,  after  that  had  been  agreed  to,  the  conferees  from  the 
lower  house  proposed  that  bills  of  credit  be  emitted  not 
only  to  the  amount  of  the  public  debt,  but  also  to  the 
amount  of  the  claim  in  dispute  and  a  further  sum  of 
.£1500  ;  that  the  public  debt  be  paid  in  bills  of  credit  ; 
that  a  sum  equal  to  the  amount  of  the  disputed  claim  be 
put  into  the  hands  of  the  treasurers  and  by  them  placed 
out  at  interest ;  that  the  principal  and  interest  be  paid  to 
the  clerk  of  the  council  or  his  representative,  in  case  the 
king  in  council  should  so  order,  otherwise,  that  such  prin- 
cipal and  interest  should  be  and  remain  the  property  of 
the  public  ;  and  that  the  said  sum  of  <£1500  be  paid  to 
the  order  of  the  lower  house  to  enable  that  body  to  em- 
ploy an  agent  at  London  for  three  years. 

But  the  lord  proprietor  had  for  a  long  time  insisted 
that  the  people  of  Maryland  should  not  be  permitted  to 
tax  themselves  for  the  support  of  an  agent  who  should 
represent  them  before  the  home  government ;  and,  hence, 
the  upper  house  could  but  reject  the  above  proposition. 
That  body,  however,  now  instructed  its  conferees  to  sub- 
mit three  propositions  to  the  conferees  of  the  lower 
house  :  first,  that  an  appeal  be  made  to  the  king  in  coun- 
cil, that  a  sum  of  money,  sufficient  to  cover  the  cost  to 
the  upper  house  in  prosecuting  the  appeal,  be  paid  to  the 
order  of  the  president  of  the  council,  and  that  a  like  sum, 
to  cover  the  cost  of  such  an  appeal  by  the  lower  house,  be 

»  L.  H.  J.,  December  17,  1765. 


372  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

paid  to  its  speaker  ;  second,  that  the  appeal  be  made  and 
prosecuted  without  the  allotment  or  application  of  any 
money  for  that  purpose  ;  third,  that  all  public  debts, 
including  the  back  claims  of  the  clerk  of  the  council, 
should  be  at  once  paid,  but  that  for  the  future  the  clerk 
should  be  paid,  in  fees  subject  to  the  regulation  of  the 
governor  and  council.  If  either  the  first  or  the  second 
proposition  were  agreed  to,  then  all  public  debts,  not 
including  the  claim  in  dispute,  were  to  be  paid  as  soon  as 
convenient ;  a  sum,  equal  to  the  amount  of  the  claim  in 
dispute,  was  to  be  paid  into  the  hands  of  one  of  the 
treasurers  and  placed  by  him  on  good  security  at  interest, 
and  the  principal  and  interest  was  to  be  accounted  for  to 
the  clerk  or  his  representative  or  as  the  property  of  the 
public  in  such  manner  as  the  king  in  council  should  be 
pleased  to  order  or  direct.1 

The  lower  house  chose  to  agree  to  the  second  proposi- 
tion, resolved  that  Charles  Garth  should  be  appointed  its 
agent,  and  appointed  a  committee  to  transmit  to  him  a 
full  account  of  the  dispute,  to  receive  contributions,  and 
to  have  the  management  of  a  lottery  whereby  to  raise 
money  for  paying  him.  Furthermore,  that  house  resolved 
that  its  committee  should  have  free  access  to  all  papers, 
books,  and  records  in  any  of  the  public  offices  ;  and  to 
encourage  the  necessary  response  from  their  constituents, 
the  same  body,  in  one  of  its  resolutions,  declared  that 
they  had  a  firm  reliance  on  the  public  virtue  and  spirit  of 
their  constituents  to  move  each  and  every  one  of  them  to 
contribute  something  toward  paying  the  agent.2 

A  considerable  sum  was  raised  by  subscription,  but  the 
lottery   was   no   success.3     The   committee   was    refused 

1  U.  H.  J.,  November  19,  20,  and  21,  1766. 

2  L.  H.  J.,  December  6,  1766. 

8  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  348,  356. 


FINANCE  373 

access  to  the  council  records  ;  but  such  a  refusal  was 
what  the  committee  desired  in  order  that  it  might  report 
the  same  to  the  agent,  Garth,  who  was  directed  in  the 
first  place  to  petition  the  crown  for  an  order  to  permit 
the  lower  house  to  support  an  agent  by  a  tax.  Yet  that 
order  was  never  received,  and  the  appeal  with  respect  to 
the  clerk's  claim  was  never  prosecuted.  That  claim  pro- 
voked little  dispute  in  the  Assembly  after  1766  ;  but  still 
it  was  one  of  the  unsettled  questions  when  the  proprietary 
government  was  overthrown.  It  must  have  been  that 
the  people  had  little  hope  that  the  king  in  council  would 
decide  the  case  in  their  favor. 

The  opposition  to  a  poll  tax  for  the  support  of  the 
council  and  its  clerk  arose  not  only  out  of  the  claim  that 
the  members  of  that  board  ought  to  be  paid  out  of  the 
duty  for  the  support  of  government  or  out  of  the  fines 
and  forfeitures,  but  also  from  the  fact  that  the  members 
of  that  board  held  so  many  of  the  most  important  offices 
and  thereby  had  a  lucrative  income  from  fees,  the  amount 
of  which  the  lower  house  could  not  reduce  below  what 
those  officers,  as  members  of  the  upper  house,  would  agree 
to.  For,  both  as  a  council  and  as  an  upper  house,  those 
officers  held  that  whenever  the  amount  of  those  fees  was 
not  determined  by  an  act  of  assembly,  the  lord  proprie- 
tor, or  the  governor  in  council,  had  the  right  to  fix  their 
amount  by  the  issue  of  an  ordinance  without  any  voice 
of  the  lower  house  in  the  matter.  The  consequence  was 
that  no  other  contest  was  waged  so  vigorously  or  for  so 
many  years  as  that  about  officers'  fees. 

Although  there  was  no  express  provision  in  the  charter 
with  respect  to  fees,  it  was  with  good  reason  held  that 
the  right  to  fix  their  amount  was  incidental  to  the  lord 
proprietor's  authority  by  charter  to  constitute  offices  and 
appoint  officers.     Yet   there  was  a  clause  in  the  charter 


374  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

restraining  the  lord  proprietor  or  his  officers  from  the 
issue  of  any  ordinance  which  should,  "  in  any  sort,  extend 
to  oblige,  bind,  charge,  or  take  away  the  right  or  interest 
of  any  person  or  persons,  of,  or  in  member,  life,  freehold, 
goods,  or  chattels." 

In  practice,  except  during  the  years  from  1639  to  1642, 
fees  were  fixed  in  amount  by  the  governor  and  council, 
from  the  founding  of  the  colony  until  the  year  1650. 
But  in  that  year  the  Assembly  began  to  limit  the  fees  of 
the  secretary  and  the  sheriffs,  and  a  little  later  those  of 
other  officers.  By  the  year  1669  the  complaint  that  ex- 
cessive fees  were  taken  contrary  to  acts  of  assembly  was 
numbered  among  the  list  of  grievances  presented  by  the 
lower  house.1  Instead,  however,  of  having  that  grievance 
redressed  that  year,  those  who  presented  it  were  told  that 
it  was  the  right  of  the  lord  proprietor  to  settle  the 
amount  of  all  fees  by  proclamation,  and  the  lower  house 
was  at  that  time  too  weak  to  offer  further  resistance. 
But  seven  years  later,  while  still  allowing  that  the  lord 
proprietor  had  the  right  to  fix  their  amount,  that  house 
requested  that  a  list,  as  fixed  or  approved  by  him,  be 
laid  before  it  in  order  that  it  might  draw  up  a  bill  for  an 
act  against  extortion.  The  request  was  granted  and  an 
act  was  passed  embodying  the  lord  proprietor's  list  and 
forbidding  any  officer  to  charge  fees  in  excess  of  what 
was  named  in  the  act,  the  duration  of  which  was  un- 
limited.2 

Little  further  attention  seems  to  have  been  given  to 
this  subject  until  after  the  Revolution  of  1689.  Then,  the 
first  royal  governor,  at  the  time  of  his  appointment,  was 
instructed  to  regulate  them  with  the  advice  of  the  council. 
But  early  in  the  first  session  of  assembly  that  was  con- 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1666  to  1676,  pp. 
169,  176.  2  Ibid.,  pp.  498,  499,  532. 


FINANCE  375 

vened  by  the  first  royal  governor,  the  lower  house  took  a 
firm  stand  in  this  matter.  Instead  of  .consenting  to  leave 
the  regulation  to  the  governor  and  council,  that  house  was 
unanimous  in  its  declaration  that  it  was  the  undoubted 
right  of  the  freemen  of  Maryland  that  no  officers'  fees 
should  be  imposed  upon  them  but  by  consent  of  their 
representatives  in  assembly,  and  that  such  liberty  was 
established  by  several  acts  of  parliament.1  The  outcome 
was  that  the  governor  at  once  agreed  that  no  fees  should 
be  either  lessened  or  increased  without  the  consent  of  the 
Assembly ;  and  an  act  for  their  limitation  was  passed  which 
varied  little  from  the  act  of  1676,  except  that  it  was  made 
temporary  instead  of  perpetual.  It  was  to  continue  only 
three  years  or  to  the  end  of  the  next  session.  It  was, 
however,  from  time  to  time  revived  and  continued  in  force, 
with  but  little  change,  until  the  year  1719.  In  the  year 
1704,  the  lower  house  asked  for  a  reduction  in  the  table 
of  fees,  but  the  upper  house  refused  to  agree  thereto,  say- 
ing that  they  were  not  greater  than  the  services  required. 
Again,  ten  years  later,  after  the  lower  house  —  complain- 
ing that  many  of  the  fees  were  exorbitant  and  tended  to 
oppression  —  had  passed  a  bill  for  reducing  them,  the 
upper  house  rejected  it  on  the  ground  that  if  passed  into 
a  law  it  would  discourage  men  of  good  learning  and  in- 
tegrity from  accepting  some  of  the  inferior  offices  and 
lower  the  state  and  dignity  of  some  of  the  superior 
officers.2 

The  officers'  pay  in  fees  was,  however,  increasing  from 
year  to  year  with  the  slow  increase  in  population,  and  by 
the  year  1719  the  lower  house  had  become  firm  in  its  de- 
termination that  the  fees  in  the  table  of  the  old  law  should 
be  reduced.     That  body  accordingly  passed  a  bill  which 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1684  to  1692,  pp. 
294,  382.  2  u#  H.  J.,  June  29,  30,  1714. 


376         MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

provided  for  a  reduction  of  all  fees  about  twenty-five  per 
cent,  and  justified  its  action  on  the  ground  that  even  after 
such  a  reduction  the  total  income  from  fees  would  still  be 
greater  than  what  it  had  been  when  the  old  law  was  first 
made.  The  governor  and  the  upper  house  asked  that  the 
old  law  be  continued  for  one  year  longer,  until  the  lord  pro- 
prietor should  be  of  age  and  probably  be  present  in  the  prov- 
ince. But  the  lower  house  declared  that  the  fees,  as  fixed  by 
the  old  law,  were  so  great  and  oppressive  to  the  inhabitants, 
that  they  would  rather  be  without  any  law  for  regulating 
them  than  to  continue  the  old  one  any  longer.  Where- 
upon the  upper  house  rejected  the  bill  and  expressed  its 
views  as  follows  :  "  We  can't  but  think  you  too  positive  in 
resolving  to  deprive  the  country  of  the  benefit  of  the  former 
law  made  for  the  purpose  (which  we  can't  but  think  has 
been  very  useful  in  restraining  the  several  officers  from 
charging  and  extorting  excessive  fees  and  making  them 
liable  to  a  prosecution  and  penalty  for  so  doing).  Although 
we  are  of  opinion,  as  well  as  you,  that  some  of  the  fees 
allowed  several  officers  by  the  former  law  are  too  highly 
rated  and  may  be  reduced,  we  think  that  the  regulation 
proposed  in  your  bill  does  so  much  abridge  the  perquisites 
of  some  of  those  offices  as  not  to  afford  a  sufficient  support 
for  the  characters  and  stations  of  the  persons  who  execute 
them.  Besides,  we  conceive  we  should  make  a  very  ungrate- 
ful return  to  his  Lordship  and  our  Governor  for  the  many 
favors  we  acknowledge  to  have  received  from  them  if  we 
should  at  once  so  extravagantly  lessen  the  revenues  of 
those  offices  which  are  their  immediate  dependencies,  and 
as  we  are  a  part  of  the  Legislature  for  this  province  we 
think  we  have  a  right  to  interpose  our  opinion,  and  that 
such  a  regulation  would  have  been  much  more  properly 
made  by  a  joint  committee.-  In  fine,  gentlemen,  we  hope 
we  have  the  interest  of  our  country  as  much  at  heart  as 


FINANCE  377 

you,  and  in  discharging  our  duties  believe  we  ought  not  to 
oppress  the  poor  nor  do  injustice  to  the  rich,  but  to  pay 
a  just  regard  to  all  degrees  of  men  by  divine  Providence 
established  amongst  us."1 

After  receiving  the  above  message,  the  lower  house 
asked  for  a  conference,  to  which  the  upper  house  con- 
sented. At  that  conference  it  was  agreed  that  the  fees  of 
the  chancellor,  sheriffs,  coroners,  clerk  of  the  court  of 
appeals,  and  the  criers  of  the  provincial  court  and  of  the 
county  courts  should  remain  as  fixed  by  the  former  law, 
while  the  fees  of  the  secretary,  commissary  general,  sur- 
veyor general  and  his  deputies,  the  clerk  of  the  council, 
and  the  clerks  of  the  county  courts  should  stand  reduced 
according  to  the  table  prepared  by  the  lower  house.2 
This  compromise  was  embodied  in  the  bill,  the  duration 
of  which  was  limited  to  three  years  and  to  the  end  of 
the  first  session  of  assembly  thereafter,  or  to  the  end  of 
the  first  session  of  assembly  that  should  be  held  after 
the  lord  proprietor's  arrival  in  the  province.  That  bill 
became  a  law.  On  the  ground  that  it  was  for  his  honor 
and  for  the  people's  interest  that  the  income  of  the  pub- 
lic ministers  should  be  large  enough  to  encourage  in- 
dustry and  integrity  in  men  of  ability  to  administer  the 
offices  of  government,  and  on  the  ground  that  as  people 
and  plenty  in  a  country  increase,  so  ought  the  rewards  of 
those  who  for  their  care,  knowledge,  and  integrity  are  em- 
ployed in  the  several  offices  of  government,  the  lord  pro- 
prietor threatened  to  disallow  it.3  But  to  that  threat  the 
lower  house  made  reply  in  the  following  words  :  "  We 
are  sensibly  touched  on  account  of  the  seeming  dissatisfac- 
tion which  your  Lordship  is  pleased  to  express  on  account 
of  the  late  regulation  of  officers'  fees,  being  firmly  assured 

i  U.  H.  J.,  June  4,  1719.  2  /&l^.?  june  5?  1719. 

3  Ibid.,  April  21,  1720. 


378          MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

were  your  Lordship  truly  apprized  of  the  large  sums  the 
fees  of  the  several  officers  amount  unto,  your  Lordship 
would  in  all  probability  incline  to  assent  to  that  regula- 
tion which  we  may  justly  affirm  by  the  good  number  of 
people  in  the  province  amounts  to  much  more  than  they 
did  when  the  former  act  was  made  which  in  the  judgment 
of  every  distinguished  person  here  are  abundantly  suffi- 
cient for  the  honorable  support  of  your  Lordship's  great 
officers,  a  handsome  maintenance  to  the  lesser,  and  a  suffi- 
cient encouragement  to  every  one  of  them  to  discharge 
the  duties  incumbent  on  him."1  Furthermore,  the  same 
house  later  declared  that  fees  were  not  so  great  in  Vir- 
ginia as  in  Maryland. 

In  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  lord  proprietor  continued 
to  express  dissatisfaction  with  the  fees  as  established  by 
the  law  of  1719,  the  lower  house,  in  the  year  1724,  pro- 
posed that  public  dues  and  officers'  fees  should  be  reduced 
one-half.2  As  the  upper  house  regarded  this  proposal 
most  unreasonable  and  unbecoming  the  justice  and  honor 
due  from  a  legislative  power,  no  reduction  of  fees  was 
made  that  year.  But  the  next  year  after  the  lower  house 
had  passed  a  bill  for  the  reduction  of  fees,  about  twenty- 
five  per  cent  below  what  they  were  by  the  law  of  1719, 
it  was  with  but  little  discussion  passed  by  the  upper 
house  and  signed  by  the  governor.3  It  seems  that  the 
upper  house  was  at  this  time  greatly  disgusted  with  the 
farmer-like  view  of  many  of  the  delegates,  who  thought 
and  declared  that  there  was  no  reason  why  an  officer 
should  be  paid  much,  if  any,  more  than  a  common  laborer. 
Under  such  conditions,  that  house  thought  best  not  to 
offer  any  opposition  to  the  new  fee  bill  until  it  came 
before  the  lord  proprietor,  and  then  to  present  him  with 

1  U.  H.  J.,  October  27,  1720.  2L.  H.  J.,  October  16,  1724. 

»  U.  H.  J.,  November  3,  1725 ;  Dulany  Papers. 


FINANCE  379 

an  address  asking  for  his  veto.  This  was  done,  and 
not  only  was  the  veto  given,  but  the  .governor  was  in- 
structed to  pass  no  bill  which  should  reduce  fees  below 
what  they  were  under  the  law  of  1719.1 

That  veto  was  received  by  the  people  with  considerable 
murmuring,2  but  it  was  in  vain  that  the  lower  house 
several  times  passed  other  bills,  providing  for  a  like  re- 
duction. Not  even  in  the  year  1728,  when  the  bill  was 
before  the  Assembly  for  raising  the  price  of  tobacco  by 
limiting  the  number  of  plants,  was  the  attempt  to  decrease 
the  quantity  of  tobacco  to  be  paid  in  fees  successful.3  A 
conference  at  that  time  agreed  upon  a  table  in  which 
many  of  them  were  reduced  below  that  at  which  they  had 
been  fixed  in  the  act  of  1725,  and  then  further  agreed 
that  if  the  tobacco  bill  should  be  passed,  people  should 
have  the  privilege  of  paying  their  fees  in  tobacco  with  an 
additional  reduction  of  one-third.  But  the  upper  house 
rejected  what  was  proposed  in  the  report  of  the  confer- 
ence.4 It  held  that  since  the  price  of  tobacco  had  fallen 
since  1725,  fees  ought  to  be  increased  rather  than  lessened, 
especially  since  the  lord  proprietor  had  vetoed  the  act  of 
that  year  for  the  reason  that  it  too  much  reduced  the 
fees ;  and  as  to  the  one-third  reduction  in  case  the  tobacco 
bill  was  passed,  the  same  house  held  that,  even  with  such 
a  law,  the  price  of  tobacco  might  not  advance  in  some 
years,  and  hence  that  it  would  be  time  enough  to  lessen 
the  fees  after  an  advance  had  been  made  in  the  price  of 
that  commodity.  On  the  other  hand,  such  a  view  of  the 
situation,  by  those  who  were  the  officers,  aroused  strong 
feelings  among  the  representatives  of  the  people,  who  now 
declared  that  the  fees,  as  proposed  in  the  report,  were 
sufficient  for  a  decent  maintenance  ;  that  the  circumstances 

1  Gilmore  Papers.  8  Supra,  p.  112. 

2  Dulany  Tapers.  *  U.  H.  J.,  October  22,  1728. 


380  MARYLAND   AS    A    PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

of  the  country  made  it  their  imperative  duty  to  avoid  as 
much  expense  as  possible  ;  that  the  fall  in  the  price  of 
tobacco  was  no  reason  for  increasing  the  fees  unless  such 
a  fall  enabled  the  people  to  make  a  greater  quantity  of  it ; 
and  that  if  the  sinking  of  the  value  of  tobacco  were  a 
reason  for  the  augmentation  of  officers'  fees,  and  they 
were  accordingly  augmented,  it  was  to  be  feared  that  the 
officers  would  have  all  the  tobacco,  and  the  planter  and  his 
wife  and  children  go  naked.  As  to  the  lord  proprietor's 
veto  of  the  act  of  1725,  the  same  representative  body  at 
this  time  said  :  "  We  beg  leave  to  observe  that  it  was 
upon  the  partial  representation  of  some  officers,  and  we 
can't  entertain  a  thought  so  injurious  (in  our  opinion) 
to  his  Lordship's  humanity  and  honor  as  to  suspect  his 
Lordship  would  support  a  few  officers  upon  the  ruin  of 
the  people  of  Maryland."  Finally,  they  concluded  by 
saying  :  "  We  entreat  your  Honors  to  consider  what  a 
miserable  condition  people  must  be  reduced  to  who  can 
hardly  support  themselves  with  necessaries  by  the  prod- 
uce of  what  is  left  them  when  they  are  at  full  liberty  to 
make  what  they  can,  if  their  crops  should  be  reduced  to 
two-thirds  of  what  they  now  make,  they  be  obliged  to  pay 
the  same  levies  and  other  dues  and  fees  they  are  now 
obliged  to  pay,  and  have  nothing  left  to  support  them- 
selves and  families  but  what  would  remain  after  such  pay- 
ments, and  whether  it  is  not  agreeable  to  natural  justice 
that  officers  who  are  to  be  supported  by  the  labor  and 
industry  of  the  people  should  not  make  an  abatement  of 
their  income  proportionate  to  what  the  people  are  obliged 
to  make  in  hopes  of  a  rise  in  the  price  of  tobaccos,  and  run 
the  same  hazard  with  their  supporters  as  to  the  event."1 
The  upper  house  yielded  to  the  entreaty  so  far  as  to 
agree  to  a  limitation  of  fees  like  that  in  the  act  of  1725, 

i  U.  H.  J.,  October  22,  1728. 


FINANCE  381 

and  a  bill  embodying  such  a  proposed  limitation  passed 
both  houses.  But  the  governor,  obedient  to  his  instruc- 
tion, withheld  his  signature.  The  next  year  the  lower 
house  endeavored  to  have  a  like  bill  passed  again  ;  but 
while  the  upper  house  acknowledged  that  the  want  of 
a  law  for  regulating  fees  was  an  inconvenience  to  both 
officers  and  people,  it  declared  it  to  be  useless  for  the 
two  houses  to  pass  any  bill  which  reduced  them  below 
what  had  been  prescribed  by  the  law  of  1719.  Where- 
upon, the  members  of  the  lower  house  unanimously  re- 
solved that  they  were  of  the  opinion  that  the  fees  settled 
by  the  act  of  1725  were  full  and  ample  rewards  for  the 
several  services  to  be  done  for  the  said  fees. 

It  appears  that  before  the  end  of  the  year  the  officers 
were  no  less  concerned  about  the  regulation  of  fees  than 
were  the  people.  For  although  charges  continued  to  be 
fixed  according  to  the  law  of  1719,  —  which  had  expired 
in  1725,  —  the  governor  at  this  time  wrote  to  the  lord 
proprietor  that,  since  the  veto  of  the  act  of  1725,  officers 
had  been  very  ill  paid  to  the  disregard  of  their  offices, 
since  every  insolent  fellow  thought  himself  free  to  refuse 
payment,  and  browbeat,  as  it  were,  the  officers.  He 
further  complained  that  to  have  them  regulated  by  act 
of  assembly  was  out  of  the  question,  because  the  lower 
house  was  determined  to  diminish  them  until  the  pay  of 
officers  should  be  reduced  to  the  mean  wages  of  the  com- 
monest writing  clerks.  Then  he  inquired  if  the  charter 
did  not  give  the  lord  proprietor  the  right  to  regulate  them 
by  proclamation.1  The  result  was  that  after  another  un- 
successful attempt  of  the  Assembly,  in  the  year  1732,  to 
pass  a  fee  bill,  the  lord  proprietor,  with  the  advice  of  the 
council,  issued  a  proclamation,  in  the  year  1733,  for  fix- 
ing their  amount  very  nearly  the  same  as  it  had  been  in  the 

1  Calvert  Papers,  No.  2,  p.  76  et  seq. 


382  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

regulation  of  1719,  and  for  enabling  the  officers  to  collect 
them  by  the  issue  of  a  writ  of  body  execution  ;  1  and 
such  a  quieting  effect  did  the  lord  proprietor's  visit  to 
the  province  at  this  time  have,  that  there  was  generally 
peaceful  submission  to  that  proclamation  until  the  year 
1738. 

However,  in  the  years  1735  and  1736,  the  lower  house 
gently  sought  the  regulation  of  those  fees  by  act  of 
assembly  instead  of  by  proclamation.  Then,  in  1738, 
the  storm  burst  forth  again  with  full  force.  There  was 
general  complaint  against  the  writ  of  execution.  The 
committee  on  grievances  reported  that  the  fees,  as  estab- 
lished by  the  proclamation  of  1733,  were  burdensome, 
great,  and  oppressive,  to  the  discouragement,  ruin,  and 
undoing  of  many  of  the  inhabitants,  and  that  even  the 
said  color  of  power  was  exceeded  by  the  unlimited  will 
of  many  of  the  officers.  In  the  same  report  —  in  the 
interest  of  having  fees  made  payable  in  the  paper  currency 
—  the  committee  observed  that  many  poor  tradesmen  and 
artificers,  who  made  no  tobacco,  were  compelled  to  buy  it 
at  excessive  and  exorbitant  prices  to  the  ruin  of  many 
families  and  their  entire  extirpation  out  of  the  province 
and  the  discouragement  of  those  who  remained  to  follow 
their  useful  arts,  labor,  and  industry.  Finally,  that 
committee  stated  that  it  conceived  that,  by  the  common 
and  statute  law  of  England,  such  like  fees  were  settled 
and  regulated  by  courts  of  justice  or  by  acts  of  parlia- 
ment ;  that,  from  the  earliest  settlement  of  Maryland  by 
British  subjects,  fees  had  been  adjusted  and  regulated  by 
acts  of  assembly ;  and,  therefore,  that  such  proclamations 
were  invasions  on  the  fundamental  constitution  of  the 
province  under  the  royal  charter  and  against  the  lawful 
rights  and  liberties  of  his  Majesty's  subjects  in  Maryland.2 

i  C.  R.,  April  14,  1733  ;  Dulany  Papers.  2  L.  H.  J.,  May  16,  1738. 


FINANCE  383 

The  next  year  the  lower  house  ordered  five  of  its  mem- 
bers to  prepare  a  fee  bill,  and,  in  so  doing,  to  have  regard 
to  the  fees  settled  in  Virginia  and  Pennsylvania.1  But 
after  the  bill  thus  prepared  had  passed  the  lower  house, 
the  upper  house  rejected  it  and  declared  that  the  lord 
proprietor's  authority  to  settle  fees  was  indisputable,  and 
that  the  complaint  about  fees  arose  for  the  most  part 
from  the  clamors  and  uneasy  disposition  of  restless  and 
turbulent  persons,  without  any  just  foundation.2  Although 
a  conference  was  agreed  to  a  little  later,  the  conferees  from 
the  upper  house  were  instructed  to  agree  to  no  bill  for  the 
establishment  of  fees  that  did  not  provide  for  making  their 
regulation  perpetual.  Because  of  that  instruction,  the 
conference  accomplished  nothing  ;  and,  after  it  had  ended, 
the  lower  house  resolved  that,  in  safety  to  themselves, 
their  constituents,  and  posterity,  they  could  not  agree 
to  a  perpetual  law  for  the  limitation  of  fees.  They 
declared  that  they  were  clearly  of  opinion  that  the 
execution  of  such  powers  by  the  lord  proprietor  as  the 
upper  house  contended  were  vested  in  him,  was  without 
foundation  and  inconsistent  with  the  liberty,  property, 
and  quiet  of  his  Majesty's  liege  subjects  in  Maryland.3 

The  committee  on  grievances  then  made  the  same  report 
as  that  of  the  previous  year  ;  and  finally,  on  this  occasion, 
in  an  address  to  the  governor  containing  a  long  list  of 
grievances,  the  members  of  the  lower  house  delivered 
themselves  as  follows  :  "  The  power  assumed  of  late  by 
his  Lordship's  settling  and  ascertaining  the  fees  of  the 
officers  in  the  Courts  of  Justice  by  way  of  Proclama- 
tion is  what  we  cannot  submit  to,  without  prostituting 
the  rights  of  his  Majesty's  Subjects  within  this  Province. 
We  do  not  know  that  even  the  Kings  of  Great  Britain 

i  L.  H.  J.,  May  4,  1739.  2  Ibid.,  May  30,  1739. 

sJbid.,  June  2,  1739. 


384  MARYLAND    AS    A    PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

exercised  their  Prerogative  in  such  cases,  especially  since 
the  happy  Revolution.  And  on  this  occasion  we  entreat 
your  Excellency  to  consider  that  part  of  the  Royal  Charter 
which  directs  that  no  ordinances  made  by  the  Proprietary 
or  his  Heirs,  their  Magistrates  or  Officers,  without  consent 
of  the  Freemen  or  their  Delegates,  shall  affect  the  right  or 
interest  of  any  person  or  persons  of  or  in  their  life,  mem- 
ber, freehold,  goods,  or  chattels,  which  clause  is  consonant 
to  the  Great  Charter  to  the  benefit  whereof  we  hope  we 
shall  not  be  denied  a  right.  However,  to  avoid  all  dis- 
putes on  this  head,  we  had  with  great  pains  and  appli- 
cation prepared  a  bill  for  settling  fees  and  made  them 
considerably  higher  than  those  of  our  neighboring  colo- 
nies, yet  we  cannot  obtain  the  consent  of  his  Lordship's 
Council  to  the  same  without  such  conditions  as  would 
in  our  apprehension  prove  destructive  to  the  people  for 
reasons  your  Excellency  cannot  be  a  stranger  to,  viz., 
that  of  making  it  a  perpetual  law  ;  and  how  reasonable 
it  is  that  the  Gentlemen  of  that  Board,  who  without 
any  warrant  from  the  Royal  Charter  assume  a  negative 
on  the  proceedings  of  the  Delegates  of  this  Province, 
and  whose  seats  at  that  Board  are  only  at  the  will  of 
the  Right  Honorable  the  Lord  Proprietary,  and  who 
(with  a  single  exception  only)  are  composed  of  such  as 
hold  the  chief  offices  and  posts  of  profit  in  the  Govern- 
ment during  pleasure,  the  exorbitancy  of  whose  fees, 
illegally  charged,  and  the  oppressive  manner  of  extorting 
them  from  the  people,  was  what  was  endeavored  by  that 
bill  to  be  remedied,  how  far  we  say  they  ought  to  be 
judges  and  have  a  negative  in  an  affair  wherein  they 
are  so  deeply  interested  we  leave  to  our  Superiors  and 
the  world  to  judge."1 

But  it  required  more  than  this  appeal  to  prevail  upon 

3L.  H.  J.,  June  5.  1739. 


FINANCE  385 

the  other  branches  of  the  legislature  to  yield  sufficiently 
to  make  a  law  for  the  limitation  of  fees.  For  the  next 
few  years  it  appeared  to  be  in  vain  that  the  lower  house 
renewed  its  attempt  to  have  a  bill  passed  for  that  purpose. 
Yet  the  crisis  was  approaching.  The  time  was  not  far 
distant  when  the  officers,  the  council,  the  upper  house, 
felt  that  it  was  to  be  either  a  limitation  of  fees  by  an  act 
of  assembly  or  the  ruin  of  the  province.  They  chose  the 
former.  In  the  year  1743  Daniel  Dulany  and  the  gov- 
ernor and  council  made  their  long  representation  of  how 
the  tobacco  industry  of  Maryland  was  alarmingly  threat- 
ened with  ruin  ;  how  the  only  way  to  save  it  was  to  pass 
an  inspection  act;  how  the  question  of  officers'  fees  was 
the  great  obstacle  to  the  passing  of  such  an  act,  and,  there- 
fore, how  the  refusal  to  permit  those  fees  being  lessened 
would  render  the  officers  odious  to  all  mankind  and  occasion 
the  imputing  of  the  calamity  of  the  country  to  them.1  The 
outcome  was  that,  two  years  later,  all  branches  of  the 
legislature  were  desirous  of  coming  to  an  agreement  with 
respect  to  fees.  Although  the  upper  house  rejected  the 
first  fee  bill  of  the  session  of  1745,  it  declared  upon  that 
occasion  that  it  was  most  sincerely  disposed  to  concur  in 
any  measures  that  might  conduce  to  the  ease  and  happi- 
ness of  the  people.  The  lower  house  thereupon  asked  for 
a  conference,  and  the  upper  house  consented.  The  dura- 
tion of  the  proposed  bill  was  next  agreed  to.  But  although 
the  conferees  from  the  upper  house  agreed  to  a  reduction 
of  fees,  twenty  per  cent  from  what  they  were  fixed  at  in 
the  lord  proprietor's  proclamation  of  1733,  the  conferees 
from  the  lower  house  insisted  that  the  fees,  as  settled  in 
Virginia  and  Pennsylvania,  should  be  laid  before  the  con- 
ference as  a  guide.  As  the  upper  house  refused  to  agree 
to  this,  on  the  ground  that  in  Pennsylvania  fees  were  paid 

1  Supra,  pp.  114-116. 
2c 


386  MARYLAND   AS   A    PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

in  money  at  the  time  of  the  service  with  no  expense  for 
collection,  and  that  in  Virginia  the  population  was  so 
much  the  larger,  this  conference  broke  up  without  reach- 
ing an  agreement.  Later  in  the  same  session,  however, 
another  conference  agreed  to  nearly  the  same  regulation 
that  the  members  from  the  upper  house  had  offered  at  the 
first  conference.  A  bill,  on  the  basis  of  this  agreement, 
passed  both  houses ;  but  the  governor,  as  he  had  threatened, 
withheld  his  assent  to  it  because  the  lower  house  had 
not  passed  an  acceptable  bill  for  the  purchase  of  arms  and 
ammunition.1  Yet,  finally,  in  1747,  nearly  the  same  agree- 
ment was  embodied  in  what  became  a  law  for  the  inspec- 
tion of  tobacco  and  the  limitation  of  officers'  fees,  and 
this  law  was  by  successive  revivals  continued  in  force 
for  twenty-three  years. 

Until  almost  the  end  of  that  period  the  fee  question 
seems  to  have  received  but  little  attention  except  that  the 
new  lord  proprietor,  Frederick,  instructed  the  governor 
to  permit  no  encroachment  on  his  power  and  authority 
to  regulate  fees,  and  except  that  the  lower  house  occa- 
sionally made  investigation  as  to  the  amount  of  the  sev- 
eral incomes  from  fees.  But  late  in  the  year  1769,  when 
the  act  of  1747  was  about  to  expire,  it  was  revived  to 
continue  in  force  till  October  1,  1770.  At  the  session  in 
which  the  law  was  thus  revived,  the  committee  on  griev- 
ances reported  cases  of  excessive  charges  of  fees  in  Charles 
and  Prince  George's  counties,  gave  it  as  their  opinion 
that  officers  in  general  paid  too  little  regard  to  the  estab- 
lished regulation,  and  recommended  that  the  delegates, 
after  investigating  the  matter,  should  bring  to  the  next 
session  a  report  by  counties  of  all  exorbitant  charges.2 

Accordingly,  when  the  Assembly  met  the  next  year, 
1770,   the   lower   house   was   firmly   resolved   upon   war 

1  Supra,  pp.  84,  301.  *  L#  H.  J.,  December  19,  1769. 


FINANCE  387 

against  fees.  It  appointed  a  committee  to  ascertain  the 
amount  of  fees  that  had  been  due  each  officer  for  the 
past  seven  years.  It  appointed  another  committee  to 
prepare  a  new  bill,  and  resolved  itself  into  a  committee 
of  the  whole  to  consider  a  new  regulation.  After  the 
first  committee  had  made  a  report,  which  showed  that  the 
annual  income  from  fees  of  the  greater  offices  had  in- 
creased more  than  fifty  per  cent  since  the  year  1747,  and  after 
the  house  had  sat  several  days  in  a  committee  of  the  whole, 
that  body  unanimously  agreed  upon  a  new  table  of  fees.1 
That  table  was  soon  completed,  and  in  it  some  fees  were 
reduced.  But  it  was  claimed  to  have  been  the  principal 
care  of  those  who  made  it,  to  prevent  charges  where  no 
services  were  performed,  to  prevent  double  charges  for 
the  same  service,  and  to  prevent  evasion  of  the  law 
through  ambiguity  of  expression.  The  upper  house, 
nevertheless,  rejected  the  new  table  and  asked  for  a  con- 
tinuance of  the  old,  with  no  changes  except  to  give  a 
reduction  in  the  case  of  immediate  payment,  and  to  offer 
an  option  of  paying  in  either  money  or  tobacco  at  the 
rate  of  twelve  shillings  current  money  for  one  hundred 
pounds  of  tobacco.  Then,  as  that  was  not  agreed  to,  the 
same  house  proposed  that  a  salary  of  £600  sterling  be 
given  to  the  secretary,  the  commissary  general,  and  the 
judges  of  the  land  office.  But  that  was  also  refused,  both 
on  the  ground  that  it  was  too  high  and  on  the  ground 
that  officers  would  not  perform  their  duties  with  as  much 
diligence  when  paid  a  fixed  salary  as  when  paid  for  each 
particular  service. 

Many  messages  on  the  subject  of  fees,  all  indicative 
of  strong  feelings,  passed  between  the  two  houses.  The 
members  of  the  upper  house  were  not  at  all  disposed 
to  agree  upon  either  fees  or  salaries  that  would  not  be 

1  L.  H.  J.,  October  3,  12,  and  13,  1770. 


388  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

favorable  to  themselves  as  officers,  because  they  felt  that, 
in  case  no  agreement  was  reached,  they  would,  as  a  coun- 
cil, advise  the  governor  with  respect  to  issuing  a  procla- 
mation like  that  of  the  year  1733.  On  the  other  hand, 
after  the  failure  to  have  fees  fixed  and  regulated  accord- 
ing to  their  new  table,  the  members  of  the  lower  house 
suspected  the  design  of  issuing  the  proclamation.  Accord- 
ingly, they,  beforehand,  vigorously  declared  themselves 
against  the  illegality  of  the  same,  as  if  in  the  hope  of 
preventing  its  issue.  They  ordered  the  report  of  the 
committee  on  grievances  of  the  year  1739  against  the 
proclamation  of  1733  to  be  again  entered  on  the  journal. 
They  passed  the  two  following  resolutions  :  "  Resolved, 
unanimously,  that  the  Representatives  of  the  Freemen 
of  this  Province  have  the  sole  right  with  the  assent  of 
the  other  part  of  the  Legislature  to  impose  Taxes  or 
Fees ;  and  that  the  imposing,  establishing,  or  collect- 
ing any  Taxes  or  Fees  on  or  from  the  Inhabitants  of 
this  Province  under  color  or  pretence  of  any  Proclama- 
tion issued  by  or  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  Proprietary, 
or  other  authority,  is  arbitrary,  unconstitutional,  and 
oppressive."1 

"  Resolved,  unanimously,  that  in  all  cases  where  no  Fees 
are  established  by  Law  for  services  done  by  Officers,  the 
power  of  ascertaining  the  quantum  of  the  reward  for  such 
services  is  constitutionally  in  a  Jury  upon  the  Action  of 
the  Party." 

It  was  at  this  time,  also,  that  they  committed  to  prison 
the  clerk  in  the  land  office  merely  because,  in  obedience 
to  instruction  from  the  judges  of  that  office,  he  had 
charged  fees  according  to  the  old  table.2  A  little  later 
that  same  house  made  the  following  declaration  to  the 
governor,    "  The  Proprietor  has  no  Right,  Sir,  either  by 

1  L.  H.  J.,  November,  1,  1770.  2  Supra,  pp.  73,  208. 


FINANCE  389 

himself,  or  with  the  advice  of  his  Council,  to  regulate  the 
Fees  of  Office  ;  and  could  we  persuade  ourselves  that  you 
could  possibly  entertain  a  different  opinion,  we  should  be 
bold  to  tell  your  Excellency  that  the  People  of  this  Prov- 
ince ever  will  oppose  the  Usurpation  of  such  a  Right." 
Finally,  as  if  to  direct  the  hostility  of  the  people  against 
the  council,  they  struck  a  severe  blow  at  the  upper  house 
in  one  other  resolution,  which  was  in  the  following  words, 
"  Resolved,  nemine  contradicente,  that  the  Upper  House, 
four  members  of  which  hold  the  Secretary's,  Commissary 
General's,  and  Land  Office,  .  .  .  have  in  the  intercourse 
between  the  two  Houses  on  the  subject  of  Fees  manifested 
an  unreasonable  attachment  to  the  emoluments  of  office 
and  evinced  an  unjustifiable  design  to  force  this  Branch 
of  the  Legislature  by  the  feelings  of  the  People-  into  a 
regulation  of  Fees  more  corresponding  to  those  Schemes 
of  Wealth  and  Power  which  it  is  to  be  much  appre- 
hended are  formed  by  some  of  the  great  Officers  of  this 
Government,  and  which,  if  carried  into  execution,  will  tend 
to  the  oppression  of  the  People,  and,  in  the  end,  greatly 
endanger  their  Liberties."1 

Nevertheless,  the  governor  and  council  were  not  thus 
prevailed  upon  to  refrain  from  the  unpopular  course ;  and 
five  days  after  the  Assembly  was  prorogued,  the  procla- 
mation appeared.2  It  was  dressed  in  the  thin  disguise 
•of  an  instrument  designed  to  prevent  oppression  ;  but  in 
reality  it  authorized  officers  to  charge  fees  according  to 
the  table  in  the  recently  expired  law.  As  a  consequence, 
when  the  Assembly  was  again  convened,  the  following 
year,  the  proclamation  was  the  principal  subject  before 
the  lower  house,  and  it  was  chiefly  with  the  governor 
that  that  body  held  intercourse  with  respect  to  the  same. 
Eight  days  after  the  opening  of  the  session,  the  committee 

1  L.  H.  J.,  November  8,  1770.  2  Ibid.,  October  17,  1771. 


390  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

on  grievances  reported  that  fees,  as  then  paid,  were  exces- 
sive and  oppressive.  At  the  same  time,  whatever  could 
be  found  in  English  statutes,  the  Maryland  charter,  and 
acts  of  the  assembly  against  such  proclamation  was  col- 
lected. Later,  resolutions  were  passed  declaring  that 
the  proclamation  was  illegal,  arbitrary,  and  oppressive, 
and  that  the  members  of  the  council,  who  advised  the 
governor  to  issue  it,  were  enemies  to  the  peace,  welfare, 
and  happiness  of  the  province  and  the  laws  and  constitu- 
tion thereof.  Then,  in  an  address  to  the  governor,  they 
gave  a  long  argument  against  the  proclamation.  They 
declared  that  in  England  fees  had  been  established  and 
regulated  by  act  of  parliament,  but  that  they  had  not 
found  a  single  instance  of  any  proclamation  by  the  king 
of  England  for  levying  the  salaries  or  ascertaining  the 
fees  of  officers.  They  also  cited  34  Edward  I,  Chapter  I ; 
Coke's  interpretation  of  the  word  u  Tallagium  "  ;  Will- 
iam and  Mary,  Chapter  II ;  Section  VIII  of  the  Maryland 
charter;  and  the  journals  of  the  Assembly  for  the  year 
1692,  as  abundantly  sufficient  to  prove  that  the  proclama- 
tion was  opposed  to  the  law  and  custom  both  of  the  prov- 
ince and  of  the  mother  country.  They  contended  that 
when  there  was  no  law  for  determining  what  fees  might 
be  demanded,  they  were  recoverable  only  after  a  jury  had 
fixed  the  amount,  upon  an  action  of  the  party. 

Then  they  continued  as  follows  :  "  Permit  us  to  entreat 
your  Excellency  to  review  this  unconstitutional  assump- 
tion of  power  and  consider  its  pernicious  consequences. 
Applications  to  the  public  offices  are  not  of  choice,  but  of 
necessity.  Redress  cannot  be  had  for  the  smallest  or 
most  atrocious  injuries  but  in  the  courts  of  justice.  And 
as  surely  as  that  necessity  does  exist,  and  a  binding  force 
in  the  proclamation  be  admitted,  so  certainly  must  the 
fees  thereby  established  be  paid  in  order  to  obtain  redress. 


FINANCE  391 

In  the  sentiments  of  a  much  approved  and  admired  writer, 
suppose  the  fees  imposed  by  this  proclamation  could  be 
paid  by  the  good  people  of  this  province  with  the  utmost 
ease,  and  that  they  were  the  most  exactly  proportioned 
to  the  value  of  the  officers'  services,  yet  even  in  such  a 
supposed  case,  this  proclamation  ought  to  be  regarded 
with  abhorrence  ;  for  who  are  a  free  people  ?  Not  those 
over  whom  government  is  reasonably  and  equitably  exer- 
cised, but  those  who  live  under  a  government  so  constitu- 
tionally checked  and  controlled  that  proper  provision  is 
made  against  its  being  otherwise  exercised.  This  act  of 
power  is  founded  on  the  destruction  of  this  constitutional 
security.  If  prerogative  may  rightly  regulate  the  fees 
agreeable  to  the  late  inspection  law,  it  has  a  right  to  fix 
any  other  quantum s ;  if  it  has  a  right  to  regulate  to  one 
penny,  it  has  a  right  to  regulate  to  a  million  ;  for  where 
does  its  right  stop  ?  At  any  given  point  ?  To  attempt 
to  limit  its  right  after  granting  it  to  exist  at  all  is  as  con- 
trary to  reason  as  granting  it  to  exist  at  all  is  contrary  to 
justice  ;  if  it  has  any  right  to  tax  us,  then  whether  our 
own  money  shall  continue  in  our  own  pockets  or  not 
depends  no  longer  on  us  but  on  the  prerogative ;  there  is 
nothing  which  we  can  call  our  own.  .  .  .  The  fore- 
fathers of  the  Americans  did  not  leave  their  native  coun- 
try and  subject  themselves  to  every  danger  and  distress, 
to  be  reduced  to  a  state  of  slavery."  Finally,  they  stated 
that  they  apprehended  the  proclamation  had  been  issued 
on  the  advice  of  some  of  those  whose  interest  in  the  fees, 
which  they  had  thus  attempted  illegally  to  establish, 
ought  to  have  excluded  them  from  his  Excellency's  con- 
fidence ;  they  asked  that  the  names  of  those  ill  advisers 
who  had  "  daringly  presumed  thus  to  tread  on  the  in- 
valuable rights  of  the  freemen  of  Maryland  "  should  be 
made  known ;  and  they  requested  that  the  minds  of  the 


392  MARYLAND    AS    A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

people  might  be  quieted  by  the  speedy  withdrawal  of  the 
proclamation.1 

In  his  reply,  the  governor  pointed  out  that,  by  the  laws 
of  the  province,  no  action  could  be  brought  before  a  jury 
unless  the  value  in  dispute  was  equal  to  six  hundred 
pounds  of  tobacco  or  fifty  shillings  current  money.2  He 
showed  that  in  some  of  the  provinces  under  the  govern- 
ment of  the  English  crown  fees  were  established  by  the 
royal  prerogative.  He  held  that  in  the  lord  proprietor's 
right  to  constitute  offices  and  appoint  officers'  was  implied 
the  right  to  determine  what  rewards  those  officers  should 
have.  He  found  precedent  in  the  province  in  support  of 
his  right  to  issue  the  proclamation.  And  in  conclusion  he 
said :  "  I  did  not  determine  to  issue  my  proclamation  till 
after  the  most  mature  consideration  it  appeared  to  me  to 
be  a  measure  not  only  lawful  but  necessary,  not  only  what 
I  might  but  what  I  ought  to  pursue.  ...  So  clear  is 
my  conviction  of  the  propriety  and  utility  of  a  regulation 
to  prevent  extortion  and  infinite  litigation,  that  instead  of 
recalling,  if  it  was  necessary  to  enforce  it,  I  should  renew 
my  proclamation,  and,  in  stronger  terms,  threaten  all  offi- 
cers with  my  displeasure,  who  shall  presume  to  ask  or  re- 
ceive of  the  people  any  fee  beyond  my  restrictions."3 

An  unsuccessful  attempt  was  made  at  this  session  and 
at  each  of  the  two  following  ones  to  pass  a  fee  bill.  But 
after  the  above  reply  was  made  by  the  governor,  the  most 
important  discussion,  on  that  burning  subject,  was  no 
longer  carried  on  in  the  halls  of  the  Assembly,  but  appeared 
in  the  columns  of  the  Gazette;  and  the  most  turbulent 
demonstrations  provoked  by  it,  were  made  at  the  polls. 

In  regard  to  no  other  questions  were  the  contradictions 
of  the  Maryland  charter  more  involved.     Both  sides  could 

i  L.  H.  J.,  November  22,  1771.  2  Supra,  p.  241. 

8  L.  H.  J.,  November  30,  1771. 


FINANCE  393 

cite  authority.  But  while  those  who  stood  for  the  preroga- 
tive were  the  more  moderate,  and  relie.d  almost  solely  on' 
the  law  and  the  custom  of  the  past,  those  on  the  other  side 
had  more  enthusiasm  and  were  fighting  against  what  popu- 
lar leaders,  not  only  in  Maryland  but  in  England  and  her 
other  colonies,  had  fully  determined  to  tolerate  no  longer 
than  was  necessary. 

The  two  principal  men  engaging  in  this  controversy, 
through  the  columns  of  the  Gazette,  were  Charles  Carroll 
against  the  proclamation,  and  Daniel  Dulany  in  defence 
of  it.  The  former  signed  himself,  "  The  First  Citizen  "  ; 
the  latter,  "  Antilon." 

Carroll  was  a  member  of  a  wealthy  Catholic  family  that 
from  the  beginning  of  the  century  had  led  the  opposition 
to  the  Protestants.  In  the  year  1765  he  had  returned  to 
the  province,  after  an  absence  of  sixteen  years  devoted  to 
study  and  travel.  His  religious  faith,  his  long  period 
of  training,  and  his  natural  endowments  —  especially  his 
ready  pen  —  made  him  a  fearless,  a  formidable  antagonist. 

Daniel  Dulany  was  the  son  of  that  able  lawyer  who  had 
led  the  lower  house  to  victory  in  the  contest  with  the  lord 
proprietor  over  the  right  of  the  people  of  Maryland  to  the 
common  and  statute  law  of  the  mother  country.  The 
younger  Dulany  had  been  thoroughly  educated  in  Eng- 
land. By  the  skill,  weight,  and  force  of  his  argument 
against  the  Stamp  Act,  he  had  won  for  himself  the  reputa- 
tion of  being  the  most  able  man  in  the  province.  Espe- 
cially was  he  looked  upon  as  a  high  authority  in  legal 
matters.  For  a  few  years  after  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp 
Act  he  was  exceedingly  popular.  But  when  it  came  to 
pass  that  his  influence  in  the  council  was  thought  to  con- 
trol the  governor,  when  he  held  the  lucrative  office  of  sec- 
retary, while  his  brother  Walter  held  the  next  most 
lucrative  office,  that  of  commissary  general,  when  two  other 


394  MARYLAND   AS    A    PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

relatives  of  his  were  given  seats  in  the  council,  when  terri- 
torial affairs  were  again  brought  under  the  control  of  that 
board,  and  when  he  resisted  with  all  his  might  the  further 
reduction  of  fees  and  advised  the  governor  to  regulate 
them  by  proclamation,  his  popularity  vanished. 

Carroll's  first  article,  which  appeared  February  4,  1773, 
had  a  powerful  effect,  not  because  it  contained  any  logical 
argument  against  the  illegality  of  the  proclamation,  but 
because  of  its  incendiary  nature.  It  was  clearly  under- 
stood to  whom  he  referred  when  he  charged  that  a  push 
was  being  made  to  find  offices  for  certain  persons  so  that 
all  power  might  be  concentrated  in  one  family.  He  ex- 
pressed a  fear  that  even  a  perpetuity  of  office  might  be 
aimed  at.  Adopting  the  principle  that  the  king  can  do  no 
wrong,  he  threw  all  the  blame  on  the  council.  "  Govern- 
ment was  instituted  for  the  general  good,"  he  continued, 
"  but  officers  intrusted  with  its  powers  have  most  commonly 
perverted  them  to  the  selfish  views  of  avarice  and  ambi- 
tion ;  hence  the  country  and  court  interests,  which  ought 
to  be  the  same,  have  been  too  often  opposite,  as  must 
be  acknowledged  and  lamented  by  every  true  friend  of 
liberty.  ...  I  have  known  men  of  such  meanness  and 
such  insolence  (qualities  often  met  with  in  the  same  per- 
son) who  would  wish  to  be  the  first  slave  of  a  Sultan  to 
lord  it  over  the  rest  ;  power  sir,  power,  is  apt  to  pervert 
the  best  of  natures  ;  with  too  much  of  it  I  would  not  trust 
the  milkiest  man  on  earth  ;  and  shall  we  place  confidence 
in  a  minister  too  long  inured  to  rule,  grown  old,  callous, 
and  hackneyed  in  the  crooked  paths  of  policy  ?  "  He  de- 
clared that  by  the  loss  of  the  inspection  act  Maryland 
tobacco  had  fallen  into  disgrace  in  foreign  markets,  and 
that,  as  a  consequence,  every  man's  property  was  decreas- 
ing and  mouldering  away.  Finally,  he  told  the  people 
that  the  general  welfare  had  been  sacrificed  in  order  to 


FINANCE  395 

preserve  from  diminution  the  salaries  of  a  few  officers, 
who,  in  advising  the  governor  to  regulate  fees  by  procla- 
mation, had  advocated  a  measure  like  those  which  cost 
King  Charles  I  his  crown  and  his  life. 

The  spirit  in  which  these  sentiments  were  received  by 
some  of  the  party  of  discontent  may  be  seen  in  the  fol- 
lowing words  of  a  letter  from  the  "  Independent  Whigs," 
to  "  The  First  Citizen  "  :  "  We  thank  you  for  the  senti- 
ments which  you  have  spoken  with  an  honest  freedom. 
We  had  a  long  time  impatiently  waited  for  a  man  of 
abilities  to  step  forth  and  tell  our  daring  ministers  in  a 
nervous  style,  the  evils  they  have  brought  upon  the  com- 
munity, and  what  they  may  dread  from  an  injured  people, 
by  a  repetition  of  despotic  measures.  While  we  admire 
your  intrepidity  in  the  attack,  permit  us  to  applaud  that 
calm  and  steady  temper,  which  so  precisely  marks  and  dis- 
tinguishes your  excellent  performance.  .  .  .  Go  on,  Sir, 
and  assert  the  rights  of  your  country  :  every  friend  to 
liberty  will  be  a  friend  to  you.  Malice  may  rage,  and 
raw  heads  and  bloody  bones  clatter  and  rattle  ;  but  the 
honest  heart  bold  in  the  cause  of  freedom  feels  no  alarm." 

It  was  two  weeks  after  Carroll's  attack  before  Dulany 
made  his  defence  of  the  proclamation.  He  began  by 
saying  :  "  The  restriction  of  officers'  fees  (on  the  falling 
of  the  Inspection  Law),  by  the  Governor's  Proclamation, 
has  been  represented  to  be  a  measure  as  arbitrary  and 
tyrannical  as  the  assessment  of  ship  money,  not  by  fairly 
stating  the  nature  of  each  transaction,  and  showing  the 
resemblance  by  comparison,  to  convince  the  understand- 
ing ;  but  in  the  favorite  method  of  illiberal  calumny, 
virulent  abuse,  and  shameless  assertion,  to  affect  the 
passions.  Inveterate  malice,  destitute  of  proofs,  has 
invented  falsehood  for  incorrigible  folly  to  adopt,  and 
indurated  impudence  to  propagate.     As   the   artifice   to 


396  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

raise  alarm  can  succeed  only  in  proportion  that  it  deceives, 
it  will  be  my  endeavor  to  counteract  the  pestilent  purpose 
by  presenting  to  the  reader,  for  his  candid  examination,  an 
impartial  account  of  the  ship  money  and  the  proclamation." 

He  then  proceeded  to  show  that  after  Charles  I  had 
bound  himself,  in  answer  to  the  Petition  of  Right,  not 
to  levy  any  tax  on  the  people  without  the  consent  of 
both  houses  of  Parliament,  he  became  determined  to  rule 
without  a  Parliament,  and  then,  by  recourse  to  his  pre- 
rogative, began  to  levy  the  ship  money  on  the  false  pre- 
tence that  it  was  needed  for  defence. 

But  as  for  Governor  Eden's  proclamation,  Dulany  con- 
tended that  it  did  no  more  than  to  restrain  officers  from 
taking  more  than  was  prescribed  by  the  old  table,  which 
was  the  most  moderate  of  any  ever  established  in  the  prov- 
ince. Furthermore,  he  stated  that  the  proclamation  was 
binding  only  in  so  far  as  it  was  legal,  and  that  the  question 
as  to  its  legality  was  determinable  only  in  the  ordinary 
courts  of  justice.  He  was  also  pleased  to  suggest  that  if 
the  king  could  do  no  wrong,  appeal  be  made  to  him. 

This  defence  called  forth  the  superior  ability  of  the 
assailant ;  and  in  his  second  article  Carroll  stated  that 
he  proposed  to  show  that  the  issue  of  the  proclamation 
was  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  the  Maryland  constitution. 
He  declared  that  he  could  not  believe  that  the  avowed 
motive  of  issuing  it  was  the  real  one.  He  pointed  out 
that,  in  submitting  the  question  of  its  legality  to  the 
courts,  the  judges  would  be  one  of  the  interested  parties. 
He  said  that  to  decide  it  was  legal,  would  rob  the  lower 
house  of  the  right  to  settle  fees  with  the  concurrence  of 
the  other  branches  of  the  legislature,  and  that,  as  fees 
were  taxes,  this  would  overthrow  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  the  constitution. 

His  exact  words  on  these  last  two  points  were  :  "  Reasons 


FINANCE  397 

still  of  greater  force  might  be  urged  against  leaving  with 
the  judges  the  decision  of  this  important  question,  whether 
the  supreme  magistrate  shall  have  the  power  to  tax  a  free 
people  without  the  consent  of  their  representatives,  nay, 
against  their  consent  and  express  declaration  I  shall  only 
adduce  one  argument  to  avoid  prolixity.  The  Governor, 
it  is  said,  with  the  advice  of  his  Lordship's  Council  of 
State,  issued  the  Proclamation.  Three  of  our  Provincial 
justices  are  of  that  Council;  they  therefore  advised  a 
measure  as  proper,  and  consequently  as  legal,  the  legality 
of  which,  if  called  in  question,  they  were  afterward  to 
determine.  Is  not  this  in  some  degree  prejudging  the 
question  ?  It  will  perhaps  be  denied  (for  what  will  some 
men  not  assert  or  deny?)  that  to  settle  the  fees  of  officers 
by  Proclamation,  is  not  to  tax  the  people ;  I  humbly  con- 
ceive that  fees  settled  by  the  Governor's  proclamation, 
should  it  be  determined  to  have  the  force  of  law,  are  to 
all  intents  and  purposes  a  tax  upon  the  people,  flowing 
from  an  arbitrary  and  discretionary  power  in  the  supreme 
magistrate  —  for  this  assertion,  I  have  the  authority  of 
my  Lord  Coke,  express  in  point  —  that  great  lawyer,  in 
his  exposition  of  the  statute  de  tallagio  non  concedendo, 
makes  this  comment  on  the  word  tallagium  — '  Tallagium 
is  a  general  word  and  doth  include  all  subsidies,  taxes, 
tenths,  fifteenths,  impositions,  and  other  burthens  of  charge 
put  or  set  upon  any  man,  that  within  this  act  are,  all  new 
offices  erected  with  new  fees  or  old  offices  with  new  fees 
for  that  is  a  tallage  put  upon  the  subject,  which  cannot 
be  done  without  common  consent  of  Parliament.'  The  in- 
spection law  being  expired,  which  established  the  rates  of 
officers'  fees,  adopted  by  the  Governor's  proclamation,  I 
apprehend  the  people  (supposing  the  proclamation  had  not 
issued)  would  not  be  obliged  to  pay  fees  to  officers  accord- 
ing to  rates;  this  proposition  I  take  to  be  self-evident. 


398  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

Now,  if  the  proclamation  can  revive  those  rates,  and  the 
payment  of  fees  agreeable  thereto  can  be  enforced  by  a 
decree  of  the  chancellor,  or  by  judgment  of  the  provincial 
court,  it  must  clearly  follow  that  the  fees  are  new,  because 
enforced  under  an  authority  entirely  new,  and  distinct 
from  the  act  by  which  those  rates  were  originally  fixed. 
Perhaps  my  Lord  Coke's  position  will  be  contradicted, 
and  it  will  be  asserted  that  fees  payable  to  officers  are  not 
taxes ;  but  on  what  principle  such  an  assertion  can  be 
founded,  I  am  at  a  loss  to  determine;  they  bear  all  the 
marks  and  character  of  a  tax ;  they  are  universal,  un- 
avoidable, and  recoverable,  if  imposed  by  a  legal  authority, 
as  all  other  debts.  .  .  .  One  would  imagine  that  a  com- 
promise, and  a  mutual  departure  from  some  points  respec- 
tively contended  for,  would  have  been  the  most  eligible 
way  of  ending  the  dispute  ;  if  a  compromise  was  not  to 
be  effected,  the  matter  had  best  been  left  undecided ;  time 
and  necessity  would  have  softened  dissension  and  have 
reconciled  jarring  opinions  and  clashing  interests;  and 
then  a  regulation  by  law,  of  officers'  fees,  would  have  fol- 
lowed of  course.  What  was  done  ?  The  authority  of  the 
supreme  magistrate  interposed,  and  took  the  decision  of 
this  important  question  from  the  other  branches  of  the 
legislature  to  itself ;  in  a  land  of  freedom  this  arbitrary 
exertion  of  prerogative  will  not,  must  not,  be  endured." 

He  then  broke  forth  in  a  furious  personal  attack  on 
Dulany,  as  the  chief  author  of  the  grievance,  saying : 
"Dismayed,  trembling,  and  aghast,  though  skulking  be- 
hind the  strong  rampart  of  Governor  and  Council,  this 
Antilon  has  intrenched  himself  chin  deep  in  precedents, 
fortified  with  transmarine  opinions,  drawn  round  about 
him,  and  hid  from  public  view,  in  due  time  to  be  played 
off,  as  a  masked  battery,  on  the  inhabitants  of  Maryland." 

Dulany  replied  ;  but,  in  doing  so,  he  added  little  to  his 


FINANCE  399 

former  arguments.  How  thoroughly  the  discussion  had 
aroused  the  voters  of  the  province,  is  .seen  from  accounts 
of  the  election  of  delegates,  held  in  the  month  of  May  of 
this  year.  After  the  closing  of  the  polls  in  the  city  of 
Annapolis  and  in  the  northwest  counties,  a  tumultuous 
crowd  made  that  proclamation  an  object  of  derision  by 
performing  some  ceremony  as  if  to  seal  its  doom.  To  the 
sound  of  muffled  drums,  with  the  proclamation  in  a  coffin, 
with  banners  that  bore  inscriptions  condemning  it,  with 
weapons  of  war  and  with  a  grave  digger,  the  march  was 
made  from  the  polls  to  the  gallows,  where  the  offensive 
document  was  hanged,  cut  down,  and  buried,  the  ceremony 
being  accompanied  by  a  discharge  of  musketry.  At  the 
same  time  the  newly  elected  delegates  were  instructed  by 
their  electors  to  return  thanks  in  the  name  of  the  public  to 
"  The  First  Citizen  "  for  the  patriotic  stand  which  he  had 
taken  ;  and  it  was  in  compliance  with  such  an  instruction 
that  Paca  and  Hammond,  delegates  from  the  city  of  An- 
napolis, wrote  to  him  the  following :  "  Your  manly  and 
spirited  opposition  to  the  arbitrary  attempt  of  government 
to  establish  the  fees  of  office  by  proclamation  justly  entitles 
you  to  the  exalted  character  of  a  distinguished  advocate 
for  the  rights  of  your  country.  The  proclamation  needed 
only  to  be  thoroughly  understood  to  be  generally  detested, 
and  you  have  had  the  happiness  to  please,  to  instruct,  to 
convince,  your  countrymen.  It  is  the  public  voice,  Sir, 
that  the  establishment  of  fees  by  the  sole  authority  of  pre- 
rogative is  an  act  of  usurpation,  an  act  of  tyranny,  which, 
in  a  land  of  freedom,  cannot,  must  not,  be  endured." 1 

But  in  the  face  of  all  this  demonstration  the  upper 
house  remained  firm,  and  the  governor  did  not  withdraw 
the  proclamation.  The  only  marked  advance  of  the 
opposition,  after  the  election,  was  that  made  in  another 

1  Maryland  Gazette,  May  20,  1773. 


400  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

Gazette  article,  signed  by  Thomas  Johnson,  Samuel  Chase, 
and  William  Paca,  in  which  these  gentlemen  contended  that 
the  ultimate  authority  was  to  be  found,  not  in  the  king, 
but  in  the  freemen  of  Maryland,  who  were  to  pronounce 
final  judgment  upon  any  great  question  in  such  successive 
elections  of  delegates  as  should  follow  a  reasonable  number 
of  dissolutions  of  the  Assembly.  It  is  not  improbable 
that  the  proclamation,  had  the  proprietary  government 
continued  a  few  years  longer,  would  have  fallen  before 
this  view  as  to  the  ultimate  source  of  authority  ;  but,  as 
it  was,  discontent  was  in  a  measure  temporarily  pacified  by 
the  revival  of  the  old  inspection  act,  without  the  table 
of  fees,  and  then  the  Revolution  soon  followed. 


CHAPTER   VI 

LOCAL   GOVERNMENT 

Maryland  was  too  small  a  province  for  the  question  of 
local  government  to  rise  to  first  importance ;  and  yet  the 
lack  of  facilities  for  intercourse  strengthened  the  people's, 
desire  for  decentralization  in  the  administration  of  pub-J 
lie  affairs,  especially  of  those  pertaining  to  justice.1  Like 
that  of  the  Palatinate  of  Durham,  this  province  was  origi- 
nally organized  as  the  government  of  a  single  county,  the 
local  divisions  of  which  were  the  hundreds  and  the  manors. 
And  in  those  early  days  a  hundred  was  erected  by  the 
governor  and  council  only  as  there  was  occasion  for  it, 
through  the  growth  of  a  new  settlement ;  while  a  manor 
was  erected  only  when  there  was  a  grant  of  a  large  tract 
of  land. 

But  from  the  time  Kent  Island  was  reduced  to  submis- 
sion, the  settlement  or  group  of  settlements  on  the  eastern 
shore  was  governed  more  and  more  like  that  of  a  separate 
county.  The  formal  erection  of  counties  began  in  the  year 
1650  ;  and  four  years  later  the  county  had  become  the 
unit  of  representation  in  the  central  government,  as  well 
as  the  principal  civil  division  for  carrying  into  execution 
the  will  of  that  government.  The  number  of  counties 
increased  from  three,  in  the  year  1650,  to  fifteen,  in  the 
year  1773.  Each  of  the  several  counties,  soon  after  its 
formal  erection,  was  divided  into  hundreds  ;  and  with  the 

1  Supra,  pp.  237-241. 
2d  401 


402  MARYLAND   AS    A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

increase  in  population  each  of  the  larger  or  more  populous 
hundreds  was  divided,  and,  in  some  cases,  even  subdivided. 
So  that,  while  in  several  of  the  older  counties  there  were 
originally  only  four  or  five  hundreds,  by  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century  there  were  in  most  of  the  counties  from 
ten  to  fifteen ;  and  in  Frederick  County  the  number,  by 
the  year  1775,  had  increased  to  twenty-seven.  The  erec- 
tion of  manors  was  continued  until  toward  the  close  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  Very  soon  after  the  establishment 
of  the  royal  government,  the  ten  counties — all  that  had  up 
to  that  time  been  erected  —  were  divided  into  thirty  par- 
ishes. Through  the  erection  of  new  counties,  and  the 
division  of  some  of  the  old  parishes,  the  number,  by  the 
year  1770,  had  increased  to  forty-four.  The  erection  of 
towns  by  general  town  acts  was  begun  in  the  year  1683, 
and  by  particular  town  acts,  in  the  year  1728.  From  the 
year  1670  there  was  one  city. 

The  local  organs  of  government  were,  therefore,  the 
county,  the  hundred,  the  manor,  the  parish,  the  town, 
and  the  city.  With  the  exception  of  the  erection  of  one 
county  by  act  of  assembly,  and  the  acts  for  the  erection  of 
towns, —  the  first  and  principal  one  of  which  was  passed 
only  after  persistent  urging  and  whipping  by  the  lord  pro- 
prietor,—  the  right  of  establishing  local  bodies,  previous 
to  the  Revolution  of  1689,  was  exercised  only  by  the  lord 
proprietor  or  by  the  governor  and  council.  But  after 
that  revolution  not  one  of  such  bodies,  except  the  hun- 
dred, was  established  without  the  authority  of  the  General 
Assembly ;  and  from  that  time  the  hundred  was  erected 
not  by  the  governor  and  council,  but  by  an  order  of  the 
county  court. 

The  county  was  an  organ  through  which  a  great  variety 
of  functions  were  performed.  As  already  stated,  it  early 
succeeded  the  hundred  as  the  unit   of  representation  in 


LOCAL   GOVERNMENT  403 

the  popular  branch  of  the  legislative  Assembly.  It  was 
only  by  counties  that  the  freemen  ever  instructed  their 
delegates  to  that  Assembly.  The  militia  was  organized 
and  trained  by  counties.  The  county  was  the  unit  for 
the  apportionment  and  the  collection  of  taxes.  The 
county  court,  with  its  four  sessions  a  year,  was  an  impor- 
tant organ  for  the  administration  of  justice.  The  same 
court  performed  a  variety  of  administrative  functions  that 
were  other  than  strictly  judicial.  The  justices  of  that 
court  advised  the  sheriff  with  respect  to  the  day  on  which 
the  election  of  delegates  should  begin ;  and  they  sat  with 
him  during  that  election.  They  divided  the  county  into 
hundreds  and  highway  precincts.  They  laid  out  the  first 
ten  counties  into  parishes,  and  afterward  settled  dis- 
putes relating  to  parish  boundaries.  They  heard  and 
answered  petitions  for  the  laying  out  of  new  highways. 
Once  a  year  they  appointed  a  constable  for  each  hundred 
and  an  overseer  for  each  highway  precinct.  To  them  the 
tobacco  inspectors  were  required  to  render  accounts ;  and 
for  misbehavior  they  could  remove  an  inspector  from  of- 
fice. They  bound  out  orphan  children  as  apprentices. 
In  some  of  the  counties  they  engaged  a  physician  to  care 
for  sick  paupers.  They  granted  petitions  and  made 
appropriations  in  the  county  levy  for  the  support  of  the 
poor  and  needy.  They  exempted  paupers  and  superan- 
nuated slaves  from  the  poll  tax.  In  a  few  cases  they 
directed  the  sheriff  to  sell  insolvent  debtors  into  servi- 
tude. In  some  counties  they  occasionally  directed  a 
church  vestry  to  sell  an  immoral  woman  and  her  children 
into  slavery.  They  provided  the  county  with  the  stand- 
ard of  weights  and  measures.  They  licensed  keepers  of 
ordinaries.  They  paid  bounties  for  the  killing  of  bears, 
squirrels,  and  crows.  They  paid  out,  annually,  several 
thousand  pounds  of  tobacco  in  prizes  for  the  best  pieces 


404  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

of  linen  manufactured  within  the  county.  They  let  con- 
tracts for  the  keeping  of  ferries  and  the  erection  and 
repair  of  county  buildings.  They,  in  answer  to  petition 
from  the  vestry  and  church  wardens,  levied  a  tax,  not 
exceeding  ten  pounds  of  tobacco  per  poll,  upon  the  tax- 
able inhabitants  of  the  parish.  They,  by  act  of  assem- 
bly of  the  year  1704,  were  authorized  to  levy  such  taxes 
as  were  necessary  to  defray  "the  several  and  respective 
county  charges." 

In  interpreting  the  above  words  of  the  act  of  1704,  a 
dispute  arose  as  to  the  extent  of  power  conferred  by  it. 
The  court  of  Prince  George's  County,  late  in  the  year 
1747,  passed  an  order  for  levying  one  hundred  thousand 
pounds  of  tobacco  with  which  to  repair  the  courthouse. 
The  cry  at  once  arose  that  if  the  execution  of  such  an 
order  was  to  be  permitted,  there  might  soon  be  taxation 
without  representation.  It  was  contended  in  several 
articles  published  in  the  Maryland  Gazette^  that  it  was 
not  the  intention  of  the  act  to  authorize  a  county  court 
to  levy  taxes  other  than  for  small  charges.1  The  basis 
of  this  contention  was  found  in  English  custom,  precedent 
established  by  the  several  county  courts,  the  act  of  assem- 
bly that  limited  the  parochial  tax  to  ten  pounds  of  tobacco 
per  poll,  and  the  limitation  of  the  jurisdiction  of  county 
courts  in  civil  cases.  The  result  was  that  less  than  one 
year  after  the  order  of  the  Prince  George's  County  court 
was  passed,  the  General  Assembly,  by  passing  a  supple- 
mentary act  to  the  act  of  1704,  declared  that  the  original 
act  should  not  be  construed  to  give  the  county  justices 
power  to  levy  taxes  for  defraying  other  than  the  "  ordi- 
nary, usual,  and  necessary  charges  annually  arising. " 
At  the  same  time  that  body  much  more  definitely  limited 

1  Maryland  Gazette,  January  20,  February  10,  March  16,  23,  April  13, 
20,  27,  May  4,  11,  and  June  4,  1748. 


LOCAL   GOVERNMENT  405 

the  power  in  question  by  authorizing  those  justices  to 
levy  a  tax  not  exceeding  ten  thousand  pounds  of  tobacco 
for  the  full  and  complete  repairing  of  the  courthouse,  not 
exceeding  six  thousand  pounds  for  the  repairing  of  the 
prison,  not  exceeding  eight  thousand  pounds  for  the 
repairing  of  any  one  bridge,  and  not  exceeding  twenty 
thousand  pounds  for  the  building  of  a  new  bridge.  A 
larger  sum  for  any  of  the  above  purposes  was  to  be  levied 
only  by  authority  of  a  special  act  of  the  General  Assembly. 

Each  county  cared  for  its  own  poor ;  but  no  almshouses 
and  workhouses  were  built  until  the  year  1768,  when  an 
act  of  assembly  made  provision  for  such  houses  in  each  of 
five  counties,  and  before  the  Revolution  of  1776  the  poor 
of  two  other  counties  were  likewise  provided  for.  Five 
trustees,  forming  a  close  corporation,  were  put  in  charge 
of  this  new  institution.  No  trustee  was  obliged -to  serve 
longer  than  five  years  ;  and,  being  discharged  in  rotation, 
they  were  to  choose  a  successor  to  one  of  their  number  at 
the  end  of  every  year.  They  were  to  meet  four  times 
a  year  for  the  transaction  of  business.  When  they  had 
purchased  the  land  and  built  and  furnished  the  houses, 
they  were  to  appoint  an  overseer,  who  was  to  serve  dur- 
ing their  pleasure.  Lastly,  the  trustees  were  to  compel 
the  poor  to  work,  and  in  this  they  were  to  be  aided  by 
both  sheriffs  and  constables. 

The  only  other  county  institution  was  the  county  school, 
the  management  of  which  was  intrusted  to  seven  visitors. 
These  officers  also  formed  a  close  corporation.  They  bought 
the  land,  erected  the  school  building,  made  the  necessary 
rules  and  regulations,  employed  the  schoolmaster.  They 
also  appointed  a  register,  who  kept  an  account  of  all  their 
proceedings  and  submitted  to  the  General  Assembly  an 
account  of  their  application  of  the  school  money.1 

1  Supra,  pp.  140-144. 


406          MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

In  the  early  days,  the  hundred  was  the  unit  of  repre- 
sentation in  the  General  Assembly.  It  was.  also,  in  those 
days,  the  principal  organ  for  military  service,  taxation, 
the  administration  of  justice  and  police  regulation.  Each 
hundred  then  had  its  military  band,  which  was  trained 
by  the  sergeant.  The  view  of  arms  and  ammunition  was 
taken  by  hundreds.  For  service  in  garrison  or  in  any 
expedition  against  the  Indians,  each  hundred  was  re- 
quired to  contribute  its  quota  of  men  and  submit  to  taxa- 
tion for  the  maintenance  of  the  same.  In  the  year  1649 
an  order  of  assembly  directed  that  once  a  month,  for 
five  months,  the  freemen  of  each  hundred  might  assemble 
at  some  appointed  place  and  there  pass  such  orders  and 
ordinances  as  they  should  judge  necessary  for  their  de- 
fence. Then,  too,  each  hundred  had  one  or  more  jus- 
tices of  the  peace  and  a  constable. 

With  the  erection  of  counties  the  importance  of  the 
hundred  declined,  and  for  a  long  time  was  little  more 
than  a  constablewick.  The  constable,  however,  continued 
to  perform  important  services.  He  prepared  the  list  of 
taxables.  He  was  present  at  every  session  of  the  county 
court  to  give  information  to  the  grand  jury.  He  was 
authorized  to  execute  all  warrants  directed  to  him  by  the 
justices  of  any  court  and  to  arrest  every  person  charged 
with  a  breach  of  the  peace.  If  an  offender  resisted,  he  was 
to  raise  the  hue  and  cry  and  give  chase.  Especially  was 
he  directed  to  raise  the  hue  and  cry  for  the  pursuit  of 
murderers,  thieves,  other  felons,  and  fugitive  servants. 
He  must  assist  in  executing  the  acts  of  assembly  against 
profane  cursing,  swearing,  and  drunkenness.  He  was  to 
do  what  he  could  to  prevent  the  tumultuous  meeting  of 
slaves. 

As  had  been  the  custom  in  the  mother  country,  so,  in 
some  measure,  in  Maryland,  every  hundred  was  repre- 


LOCAL   GOVERNMENT  407 

sented  at  the  county  court.  It  was  so  represented  by  its 
constable.  It  had  one  or  more  representatives  among  the 
grand  jury,  and  the  governor,  in  appointing  the  county 
justices,  may  have  sought  to  give  each  hundred  a  repre- 
sentative in  that  body. 

With  the  political  awakening  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, the  freemen  of  the  hundred  became  more  and  more 
conscious  of  themselves  as  a  body  politic.  Occasionally 
they  held  a  meeting  of  their  own  to  discuss  political 
affairs.  Now  and  then  a  petition  had  its  origin  in  such 
a  meeting.  Finally,  when  the  great  contest  with  the 
mother  country  came,  the  hundred  became  the  useful 
organ  which  it  had  been  in  the  early  days.  It  was  in 
their  respective  hundreds  that  the  freemen  met  and 
formed  themselves  into  companies  for  military  service  in 
that  great  conflict.  Subscriptions  for  raising  the  neces- 
sary money  were  taken  under  the  direction  of  committees 
in  the  several  hundreds.1  The  committee  of  observation 
in  each  of  the  several  counties  was  in  large  measure  com- 
posed of  men  representing  the  several  hundreds.  In 
February,  1775,  at  a  meeting  of  the  freemen  of  Frederick 
County,  it  was  resolved  that  the  voters  of  each  hundred 
of  that  county  should  elect  a  number  of  the  members  of 
the  committee  of  observation  that  was  in  proportion  to 
its  number  of  taxables  :  one,  if  the  number  of  taxables 
did  not  exceed  200 ;  two,  if  the  number  of  taxables  was 
between  200  and  400  ;  and  three,  if  the  number  of  tax- 
ables exceeded  400. 2 

The  formation  of  large  estates  in  England  during  the 
Middle  Ages  resulted  in  the  inclusion  of  many  hundreds 
within  manors  ;  and  so,  in  the  early  days  of  Maryland, 
whenever  the  estates  were  large,  were  inhabited  by  several 

1  Maryland  Gazette,  January  5  and  12,  1775. 

2  Ibid.,  February  2,  1775. 


408  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY  PROVINCE 

tenants  and  servants,  and  the  owners  were  separated  by 
wide  intervals  from  other  habitations,  there  was  reason  for 
erecting  such  estates  into  manors  and  thereby  intrusting  the 
owners  with  local  jurisdiction.  But  as  the  province  became 
more  thickly  settled,  and  especially  as  slaves  supplanted 
the  tenants  and  servants,  that  institution  fell  into  disuse.1 

The  officers  of  the  manor  were  the  steward,  the  bailiff, 
the  constable,  and  two  affeerors.  The  steward  was  ap- 
pointed by  the  lord  of  the  manor  ;  but  it  is  probable  that 
all  the  other  officers  were  chosen  in  court  by  the  resident 
freemen.  The  whole  body  of  resident  freemen  sat  at  one 
and  the  same  time  both  as  a  court  baron  and  as  a  court 
leet.  A  freeman  who  was  absent  was  subject  to  a  fine  of 
one  hundred  pounds  of  tobacco,  payable,  as  were  other 
fines,  to  the  lord  of  the  manor.  The  steward  presided  as 
judge.  Twelve  of  the  freemen  served  both  as  a  grand 
jury  and  as  a  petty  jury.  Whenever  the  fine  imposed  by 
the  judge  or  jury  was  thought  excessive,  it  was  revised 
by  the  affeerors.  Stocks,  pillory,  and  ducking  stool  were 
provided  as  instruments  of  justice  by  a  general  contri- 
bution throughout  the  manor.  The  civil  duties  of  the 
bailiff  and  the  constable  were  probably  similar  to  those 
of  the  sheriff  in  the  county  and  of  the  constable  in  the  hun- 
dred. Besides  transacting  its  judicial  business,  the  court 
passed  some  legislative  measures. 

Of  the  few  extant  records  of  the  manorial  courts  of 
Maryland,  the  following  items  serve  to  illustrate  the  more 
characteristic  practises  of  this  antiquated  institution  : 
"Martin  Kirke  took  of  the  lady  of  the  manor  in  full 
court,  by  delivery  of  the  said  steward,  by  the  rod,  accord- 
ing to  the  custom  of  the  said  manor,  one  message,  etc., 
and  so  the  said  Kirke  having  done  his  fealty  to  the  lady, 
was  thereof  admitted  tenant." 

1  Supra,  p.  52. 


LOCAL   GOVERNMENT  409 

"  We  present  an  alienation  from  James  Edmonds  to 
Thomas  Oakley  upon  which  there  is  a  relief  due  to  the 
lord,  and  Oakley  hath  sworn  fealty." 

"The  jury  presents  Robert  Cooper  for  cutting  of  sedge 
on  St.  Clement's  Island  and  fowling  without  license,  for 
which  he  is  amerced  ten  pounds  of  tobacco." 

"  We  present  Luke  Gardiner  for  catching  two  wild  hogs 
and  not  restoring  the  one-half  to  the  lord  of  the  manor, 
which  he  ought  to  have  done,  and  for  his  contempt  therein 
is  fined  two  thousand  pounds  of  tobacco  ;  afferred  to  two 
hundred  pounds  of  tobacco." 

"  We  present  John  Mansell  for  entertaining  Benjamin 
Hamon  and  Cybill  his  wife  as  inmates.  It  is  therefore 
ordered  that  the  said  Mansell  do  either  remove  his  in- 
mates or  give  security  to  save  the  parish  harmless  by  the 
next  court  under  pain  of  one  thousand  pounds  of  tobacco." 

"  We  present  Humphrey  Willy  for  keeping  a  tipling 
house  and  selling  his  drink  without  a  license  at  unlawful 
rates,  for  which  he  is  fined  according  to  act  of  assembly 
in  that  case  made  and  provided." 

"  We  present  that  Thomas  Rives  hath  fallen  five  or 
six  timber  trees  upon  Richard  Foster's  land  within  this 
manor,  referred  till  view  may  be  had  of  Rive's  lease." 

"  We  present  that  John  Blackiston  hunted  John  Teni- 
son's  horses  out  of  the  said  Blackiston's  cornfield  fence, 
which  fence  is  proved  to  be  insufficient  by  the  oaths  of 
John  Hoskins  and  Daniel  White." 

"  We  present  Joshua  Lee  for  injuring  John  Hoskins 
his  hogs  by  setting  his  dogs  on  them  and  tearing  their 
ears  and  other  hurts,  for  which  he  is  fined  one  hundred 
pounds  of  tobacco  and  cask." 

"  We  present  also  a  Cheptico  Indian  for  entering  into 
Edward  Turner's  house  and  stealing  a  shirt  from  thence, 
and  he  is  fined  twenty  arms  length  if  he  can  be  known." 


410  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

"  We  present  also  the  King  of  Cheptico  for  killing  a 
wild  sow,  taking  her  pigs,  and  raising  a  stock  of  them. 
Referred  to  the  honorable  the  Governor." 

"  We  conceive  that  Indians  ought  not  to  keep  hogs,  for 
under  pretence  of  them  they  may  destroy  all  the  hogs 
belonging  to  the  manor  ;  and  therefore  they  ought  to  be 
warned  now  to  destroy  them,  else  to  be  fined  at  the  next 
court.     Referred  to  the  honorable  the  Governor." 

"  We  do  further  present  that  our  bounds  are  at  this 
present  time  imperfect  and  very  obscure.  Wherefore 
with  the  consent  of  the  Lord  of  the  Manor  we  do  order 
that  every  man's  land  shall  be  bounded,  marked,  and  laid 
out  between  this  and  the  next  Court  by  the  present  jury 
with  the  assistance  of  the  lord  upon  pain  of  two  hundred 
pounds  of  tobacco  for  every  man  that  shall  make  default."  1 

The  first  church  act,  passed  in  the  year  1692,  directed 
that  the  justices  of  each  county,  with  the  aid  of  such  prin- 
cipal freeholders  as  they  might  appoint,  should  divide  and 
lay  out  their  county  into  as  many  parishes  as  in  their  dis- 
cretion should  be  thought  convenient.  The  result  of  this 
direction  was  that,  by  the  year  1696,  four  of  the  counties 
had  been  divided  into  four  parishes  each,  two  into  three 
each,  and  four  into  two  each.  When  a  parish  was  once 
laid  out,  it  could  not  be  divided  or  have  its  boundaries 
changed  without  authority  given  by  an  act  of  assembly. 

The  officers  of  the  parish  were  six  vestrymen  at  least,  — 
of  whom  the  minister  was  one,  —  two  church  wardens,  a 
clerk,  and  a  register.  By  act  of  1692  the  vestrymen  were 
chosen  by  the  freeholders.  When  once  chosen,  there  was 
nothing  in  that  act  to  prevent  their  continuing  in  office  for 
life  or  until  they  ceased  to  be  residents  of  the  parish,  and 
vacancies  were  to  be  filled  by  the  remaining  members.  But 
by  the  act  of  1702  the  taxable  freeholders  of  the  parish  were 

1  Mayer,  "  Ground  Rents  in  Maryland,"  pp.  151-157. 


LOCAL   GOVERNMENT  411 

each  year,  after  asking  any  two  of  the  vestrymen  to  retire 
from  office,  to  elect  two  others  to  succeed,  them.  Finally, 
an  act  of  1730  directed  that  they  should  retire  in  rotation, 
two  each  year,  and  that  for  three  years  after  retiring  they 
should  not  be  liable  to  reelection.  Until  the  year  1702  the 
church  wardens  were  chosen  by  the  vestry  alone  ;  but  by 
the  act  of  that  year  they  were  thereafter  chosen  by 
both  the  vestry  and  the  other  taxable  free-holders.  The 
clerk  was  appointed  by  the  minister  ;  the  register,  by  the 
vestry. 

The  vestry  was  a  corporate  body  for  the  holding  and 
the  disposal  of  church  property  and  for  the  acceptance  of 
bequests.  It  was  required  to  meet  regularly  on  the  first 
Tuesday  of  every  month.  It  and  the  church  wardens 
were  required  to  attend  to  the  building  and  the  repair  of 
the  church  or  chapel  and  to  pay  all  parochial  charges. 
The  church  site,  however,  might  be  chosen  by  the  whole 
body  of  parishioners  ;  and  the  vestry  could  not  choose  the 
minister,  for  this  was  a  right  exercised  by  the  governor. 
When  necessary,  the  vestry  and  church  wardens  could 
request  the  county  court  to  levy  a  tax  on  the  taxable 
inhabitants  of  the  parish,  not  exceeding  ten  pounds  of 
tobacco  per  poll.  If  a  larger  sum  was  needed,  they  were 
obliged  to  present  a  petition  to  the  governor  and  council, 
who  laid  it  before  the  General  Assembly.  In  the  year 
1758  the  General  Assembly  passed  an  act  to  empower  the 
justices  of  Charles  County  to  levy  on  the  taxable  inhabi- 
tants of  Port  Tobacco  Parish  in  their  county  no  more  than 
two  pounds  of  tobacco  per  poll,  annually,  for  the  support 
of  an  organist  in  said  parish.  Again,  in  the  year  1774, 
another  such  act  provided  for  the  support  of  an  organist 
in  one  of  the  parishes  of  St.  Mary's  County.  The  reg- 
ister kept  a  record  of  all  births,  deaths,  marriages,  and 
vestry    proceedings.       These     records    the     parishioners 


412          MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

might  inspect  ;  and,  at  any  time,  they  might  appeal  to 
the  governor  and  council  against  a  vestry  act. 

It  was  the  duty  of  the  vestry  to  labor  for  the  suppres- 
sion of  immorality ;  to  that  end  it  was  required  to  set  up 
in  the  church  a  table  of  marriages;  and  with  the  same 
purpose  it  sometimes  reported  its  incorrigible  cases  to 
the  county  court.  As  stated  above,  that  court  sometimes 
decreed  that  the  vestry  should  sell  an  immoral  woman 
and  her  children  into  slavery.  Furthermore,  the  vestry 
was  required  to  perform  some  duties  that  were  wholly 
secular.  When  an  attempt  was  made  to  limit  the  number 
of  tobacco  plants,  the  vestry  chose  men  to  do  the  count- 
ing. Under  the  inspection  act,  each  vestry  was  to  nomi- 
nate for  every  tobacco  warehouse  in  its  parish  four  men 
for  inspectors,  from  whom  the  governor  was  to  choose  two. 
And  by  the  supply  act  of  1756,  which  taxed  bachelors,  the 
vestry  and  church  wardens  of  each  parish  were  required  to 
prepare  a  list  of  all  their  bachelors  of  twenty-five  years  of 
age  and  over,  setting  forth  the  value  of  each  one's  estate. 

The  powers  of  the  vestry  in  church  affairs  were,  there- 
fore, very  limited.  It  was  tied  down  close  to  the  will  of 
the  central  government  on  the  one  side  and  to  that  of  the 
parishioners  on  the  other.  Neither  were  its  duties  in 
secular  affairs  of  a  nature  to  bring  popularity  upon  those 
discharging  them.  The  consequence  was  that  the  office 
of  vestryman  was  not  a  coveted  one.  In  the  year  1728 
the  lower  house  unanimously  resolved  that  it  was  a  griev- 
ance that  there  was  no  act  of  assembly  for  fining  those 
vestrymen  who  refused  to  serve ;  and  two  years  later  the 
Assembly  fixed  the  fine  for  such  an  offence  at  one  thousand 
pounds  of  tobacco. 

Effort  after  effort  was  made  to  promote  the  growth  of 
towns ;  but  every  such  effort  was  powerless  to  overcome 
natural  obstacles.     When  a  regulation  of  the  tobacco  in- 


LOCAL   GOVERNMENT  413 

dustry  had  become  much  needed,  the  governor,  in  the  year 
1668,  issued  a  proclamation  naming  thirteen  places  for  ports 
and  forbidding  shipment  from  any  other  place  or  places 
under  pain  of  one  year's  imprisonment.  In  each  of  the 
years  1669  and  1671  a  similar  proclamation  was  issued; 
but  the  government  was  unable  to  enforce  such  measures. 
The  governor,  Charles  Calvert,  however,  upon  becom- 
ing lord  proprietor,  was  still  persistent  and  hoped  that  the 
end  might  be  attained  through  a  legislative  enactment. 
Accordingly,  in  the  year  1682,  the  upper  house  passed 
such  a  bill  as  he  and  the  council  proposed.  The  lower 
house  referred  it  to  a  committee.  That  committee  pro- 
posed several  amendments.  Members  of  the  upper  house 
then  joined  the  said  committee.  The  upper  house  again 
passed  the  bill  as  amended  by  the  joint  committee.  But 
after  the  lower  house  had  twice  read  the  amended  bill, 
that  body  voted  that  many  other  amendments  were  nec- 
essary, and  asked  that  the  whole  matter  be  referred  to  the 
next  session.  The  upper  house,  however,  was  not  willing 
to  give  it  up.  A  conference  of  all  the  members  of  both 
houses  was  agreed  to.  But  in  that  conference  the  lower 
house  stated  that  the  lord  proprietor  in  his  speech  at  the 
opening  of  the  session  had  made  no  mention  of  the  need 
of  any  such  bill ;  and  then  insisted  that  it  be  permitted 
"to  preserve  its  privileges,  and  not  be  further  pressed 
upon  new  matters."  At  the  opening  of  the  next  session, 
in  the  year  following,  the  lord  proprietor  did  not  fail  to 
mention  the  matter.  The  upper  house  then  proposed  that 
it  be  considered  by  a  joint  committee,  and  to  that  end 
each  house  appointed  two  members.  A  bill  was  framed 
in  which  some  of  the  places  proposed  for  towns  were 
named  by  the  committee,  and  others  by  the  lord  proprie- 
tor. The  lower  house  expressed  its  approval  of  the  bill, 
but  declined  to  pass  it  except  on  condition  that  the  upper 


414  MARYLAND   AS    A    PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

house  would  first  pass  the  bills  for  levying  war  and  for 
the  election  of  delegates,  and  that  the  lord  proprietor 
would  also  give  his  assurance  that  he  would  sign  the  same. 
The  naming  of  such  conditions  thoroughly  incensed  the 
lord  proprietor.  He  ordered  the  lower  house  to  be  called 
before  him,  gave  to  it  a  free  expression  of  his  sentiments, 
whipped  it  into  line ;  and  the  result  was  that  the  bill  was 
passed  before  that  day's  adjournment.  Yet  the  obtaining 
of  a  law  by  means  of  such  pressure  was  not  necessarily 
much  of  an  advance  upon  the  proclamation. 

Thirty-one  town  plots,  of  one  hundred  acres  each,  were 
to  be  laid  out ;  and  shipping  from  any  other  place  or  places 
within  the  province  was  forbidden.  Three  supplementary 
acts,  passed  before  the  Revolution  of  1689,  increased  the 
number  to  fifty-seven.  Many,  if  not  all,  of  the  proposed 
towns  were  actually  laid  out ;  but  in  the  year  1692  both 
the  principal  and  the  supplementary  acts  were  repealed. 

The  next  town  act,  passed  in  the  year  1694,  provided 
for  the  erection  of  only  two  towns,  —  Anne  Arundel,  on 
the  western  shore,  and  Oxford,  on  the  eastern  shore.  A 
collector  and  a  naval  officer  were  to  reside  in  each  ;  and  to 
the  one  or  the  other  of  them  ships  were  to  come  for  entering 
and  for  clearing.  The  following  year  the  name  Anne 
Arundel  was  changed  to  Annapolis,  and  Oxford  to  William- 
stadt.  Still  one  year  later  Annapolis  was  made  an  incor- 
porated town,  and  in  1708  it  was  incorporated  as  a  city. 

Another  general  town  act  was  passed  in  the  year  1706, 
and  two  supplementary  acts  were  passed  the  following 
year.  These  acts  provided  for  the  laying  out  of  about 
fifty  town  plots  of  one  hundred  acres  each.  They  directed 
that  ships  and  vessels  should  unload  at  some  one  of  the 
said  towns,  but  placed  no  restriction  as  to  the  place  of 
loading,  and  the  crown  disallowed  them. 

Such  were  the  last  general  town  acts  ;  and  there  wastf 


LOCAL   GOVERNMENT  415 

no  further  town  legislation  of  any  kind  until  the  year 
1728.  But  from  that  year  until  the  middle  of  the  cen- 
tury many  an  act  was  passed  for  the  laying  out  of  some 
particular  town,  or  for  laying  out  anew  some  town  that 
had  formerly  been  platted  under  direction  of  one  of 
the  general  acts.  By  direction  of  such  particular  acts, 
each  of  the  following  towns  was  laid  out  in  the  year  indi- 
cated :  Leonard-Town  in  1728 ;  Charles-Town  in  Charles 
County  and  Baltimore-Town  in  Baltimore  County  in  1729  ; 
Cecil-Town  and  Chester-Town  in  1730;  Ogle-Town, 
Jones-Town,  Salisbury-Town,  Kings-Town,  Benedict  Leon- 
ard-Town, and  Bridge-Town  in  1732  ;  Jansen-Town  and 
Princess  Anne-Town  in  1733 ;  Frederick-Town  in  Cecil 
County  and  George-Town  in  Kent  County  in  1736  ; 
Snow  Hill-Town,  Bladensburgh,  and  Charles-Town  on 
Northeast  River  in  1742 ;  Baltimore-Town  and  Newport- 
Town  in  Worcester  County  and  Upper  Marlborough- 
Town  in  Prince  George's  County  in  1744  ;  Princess 
Anne-Town  in  Somerset  County  in  1745  ;  and  George- 
Town  in  Frederick  County  in  1751.  But,  again,  several 
of  these  towns,  although  laid  out  by  direction  of  a  par- 
ticular act,  would  not  grow  ;  others  grew  so  little  that  it 
did  not  become  necessary,  after  they  were  once  laid  out, 
to  separate  the  government  of  them  from  the  government 
of  the  county  in  which  they  were  located  ;  and  so,  in 
only  a  few  cases,  was  a  town  government  instituted. 

In  the  general  town  acts,  twenty-four  commissioners  in 
each  county  were  directed  to  lay  out  the  several  towns 
within  their  county ;  but  each  of  those  acts,  after  the  first 
one,  permitted  the  commissioners  of  each  county  to  divide 
themselves  into  committees,  and  the  committee  composed 
of  members  living  nearest  to  a  place  named  for  a  town 
were  authorized  to  superintend  the  laying  of  it  out.  In 
the    particular    town    acts,   special    commissioners   were 


416  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

directed  to  lay  out  the  one  town  named.  Squares  were 
marked  off  in  each  town  for  a  church,  chapel,  market- 
house,  and  other  public  buildings.  In  Williamstadt,  in 
Annapolis,  and  in  Charles-Town  on  Northeast  River,  from 
one  hundred  to  three  hundred  acres  were  purchased  for 
the  town  commons.  The  lots  were  always  made  equal  in 
size,  usually  a  little  less  than  one  acre  each.  The  general 
town  acts  directed  that  one  hundred  acres  should  be  laid 
out  for  every  town  ;  but  by  the  several  particular  acts  the 
size  of  the  town  plots  varied  from  twenty  to  five  hundred 
acres.  The  general  acts  forbade  any  person  to  purchase 
more  than  one  lot  in  any  one  town  within  four  months 
from  the  time  the  town  was  laid  out  ;  but  in  the  several 
particular  acts  the  time  during  which  this  restriction  was 
to  continue  varied  from  four  months  to  three  years.  All 
acts  for  laying  out  towns  required  that  he  who  took  up  a 
lot  should  complete  the  building  thereon,  within  a  speci- 
fied time,  —  usually  one  year,  —  of  a  dwelling  house 
covering  at  least  four  hundred  square  feet  of  ground, 
or  forfeit  his  title  to  the  lot.  Some  of  the  particular 
acts  further  required  that  the  chimney  of  the  dwelling 
should  be  built  of  brick  or  stone.  Finally,  nearly  all  the 
particular  acts  forbade  the  town  inhabitants  to  allow 
cattle,  horses,  sheep,  hogs,  or  geese  to  run  at  large  within 
the  town. 

In  many  of  the  towns,  the  lack  of  inhabitants  left  little 
for  the  commissioners  to  do  after  the  town  was  once  laid 
out.  But  in  Annapolis,  before  it  became  a  city,  in  Balti- 
more-Town, in  Frederick-Town,  and  in  Charles-Town  on 
Northeast  River,  the  powers  and  duties  of  those  officers 
grew  with  the  development  of  a  town  government.  By 
act  of  1696  eight  commissioners  were  made  a  corporate 
body  known  as  the  commissioners  and  trustees  for  the 
port  and  town  of  Annapolis.     In  that  capacity  they  could 


LOCAL   GOVERNMENT  417 

sue  and  be  sued.  They  were  empowered  to  make  such 
orders  and  by-laws  as  were  consonant  and  agreeable  to  the 
laws  of  England  and  the  acts  of  the  Maryland  Assembly. 
They  were  constituted  the  justices  of  the  town  court,  and 
were  empowered  to  appoint  the  clerk  and  the  crier  of  that 
court.  As  justices,  they  were  empowered  to  hear  and  de- 
termine any  civil  case  arising  between  any  of  the  towns- 
men in  which  the  value  in  dispute  did  not  exceed  £5 
sterling  or  one  thousand  pounds  of  tobacco  ;  they  were 
also  authorized  to  punish  misdemeanors  and  breaches  of 
the  peace,  not  extending  to  life  or  member,  committed 
within  the  said  town.  And  they  were  empowered  to  make,"" 
erect,  and  constitute  a  market  to  be  held  once  every  week 
and  a  fair  to  be  held  every  year  at  such  time  and  place  as 
they  should  think  most  convenient —  persons  coming  to  such 
market  or  fair  not  to  be  subject  to  arrest  except  in  case  of 
treason,  murder,  or  felony.  To  fill  a  vacancy  in  the  said 
corporate  body  —  caused  by  death,  resignation,  or  change 
of  residence  —  the  resident  freemen  were  to  elect  one  who 
possessed  the  qualifications  required  of  each  delegate  to 
the  lower  house  of  the  General  Assembly. 

Even  down  to  the  Revolution  of  1776  no  other  town 
government  in  Maryland  was  so  fully  organized  as  was 
that  of  Annapolis  before  it  became  a  city.  However,  by 
the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the  commissioners  of 
Charles-Town  on  Northeast  River  had  been  authorized 
to  lay  out  money  for  the  erection  of  public  buildings. 
They  had  been  directed  to  meet  on  the  tenth  day  of  May 
each  year,  to  view  and  perpetuate  the  boundary  marks 
between  lots,  and  to  inspect  and  inquire  into  the  manage- 
ment of  the  wharf  and  store  houses.  They  had  been 
directed  to  fix  the  wharfage  and  storage  rates.  They  had 
been  authorized  to  appoint  a  clerk,  a  viewer  of  flour,  a 
wharfinger   and   storehouse   keeper,  and   an   overseer  of 

2e 


418  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

highways.  It  was  the  duty  of  the  clerk  to  keep  a  record 
of  their  proceedings.  It  was  the  duty  of  the  viewer  of 
flour  to  brand  all  flour  shipped  ;  and  a  fine  of  one  shilling 
was  to  be  imposed  for  every  condemned  barrel.  It  was 
the  duty  of  the  overseer,  at  such  times  as  he  or  the  com- 
missioners should  appoint,  to  require  the  male  inhabitants 
of  the  town  to  assist  in  cleaning  the  streets,  or  in  the  build- 
ing of  bridges  and  causeways  —  a  fine  of  five  shillings  to 
be  imposed  for  every  day's  neglect  to  obey  the  summons 
of  the  overseer.  For  a  time  the  committee  filled  all  vacan- 
cies in  their  own  number ;  but  as  soon  as  there  were  twenty 
residents  who  were  qualified  to  vote  for  delegates  to  the 
lower  house  of  the  General  Assembly,  those  vacancies 
were  to  be  filled  by  election. 

A  more  evident  advance  in  town  government  one  may 
expect  to  find  in  the  thriving  town  of  Baltimore.  Only 
sixty  acres  were  laid  out  for  that  town  in  the  year  1729  ; 
but  in  the  year  1745  it  and  Jones-Town  were  incorporated 
as  one.  The  act  by  authority  of  which  this  was  done  and 
one  other  act,  passed  two  years  later,  further  directed  that 
the  commissioners  should  meet  at  least  once  a  year  to  see 
that  the  boundary  marks  of  each  lot  were  kept  up  and 
preserved.  They  were  authorized  to  settle  any  dispute 
about  such  boundaries.  With  the  consent  of  the  owners 
of  adjacent  lots,  they  might  widen  or  otherwise  alter  any 
lane  or  alley.  They  were  given  power  not  only  to  appoint 
and  to  remove  the  town  clerk,  but  also,  for  his  pay,  to 
levy,  assess,  and  take  by  way  of  distress,  if  necessary, 
from  the  inhabitants  of  the  said  town,  by  equal  and  even 
proportion,  X3  yearly.  They  were  given  power  not  only 
to  make  rules  and  orders  for  the  holding  of  two  annual 
fairs,  but  also  for  the  improvement  and  regulation  of  the 
town  in  general,  provided  they  were  not  inconsistent  with 
the  laws  of  Maryland  and  the   statutes  and  customs  of 


LOCAL   GOVERNMENT  419 

Great  Britain.     Lastly,  they  enjoyed  the  privilege  of  fill- 
ing vacancies  in  their  own  number.1     ' 

The  development  of  town  government  involved  by  no 
means  a  strong  movement  toward  decentralization.  Not 
one  of  the  towns  was  given  the  privilege  of  sending  dele- 
gates to  the  General  Assembly ;  and  only  in  two  instances 
were  the  townsmen  permitted  to  elect  either  their  princi- 
pal or  their  lesser  officers.  Of  town  meetings  like  those 
in  New  England  there  were  none.  However,  with  the 
increase  of  business,  the  powers  and  duties  of  the  com- 
missioners were  extended.  They  were  made  a  corporate 
or  a  quasi-corporate  body,  and  were  given  the  right  of  ap- 
pointing the  other  town  officers.  The  General  Assembly 
interfered  little  in  a  direct  way  with  the  management  of 
town  affairs,  other  than  to  pass  laws  for  the  establish- 
ment and  regulation  of  a  market  in  Baltimore-Town,  in 
Frederick-Town,  and  in  Chester-Town.  The  Frederick- 
Town  market  act,  for  example,  directed  that  the  market  V 
hours  should  be  from  morning  until  noon  on  Wednesdays 
and  Saturdays.  All  victuals  and  provisions  brought  to 
town  for  sale  (except  fish,  oysters,  grain,  flour,  bread,  [/ 
butter  in  firkins  or  other  vessels  exceeding  twenty  pounds 
net,  cheese,  pork  by  the  hog,  beef  or  pork  in  barrels  or 
larger  casks,  live  cattle,  sheep,  and  hogs)  upon  those  days, 
or  any  other  days,  were  to  be  carried  to  the  market  house. 
No  one  was  to  buy  out  of  market  during  market  hours. 
The  justices  of  the  county  court  were  to  appoint  a  clerk 
of  the  market,  who  was  to  rent  the  stalls  and  destroy  any- 
thing unwholesome. 

1  An  act  of  1771,  to  prevent  the  exportation  of  non-merchantable  flour 
staves,  and  shingles,  and  to  regulate  the  weight  of  hay  and  the  measure 
of  grain,  salt,  flaxseed,  and  firewood,  directed  the  commissioners  to  ap- 
point an  inspector  of  flour,  from  one  to  three  persons  to  cull  staves  and 
shingles,  from  one  to  three  persons  to  measure  grain,  salt,  and  flax,  and 
from  one  to  five  persons  to  weigh  hay  and  cord  wood. 


420  MARYLAND   AS    A   PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

The  cities  of  the  province  were  St.  Mary's  and  Annapo- 
lis ;  with  the  erection  of  the  latter,  however,  the  former 
ceased  to  be.  The  charter  of  St.  Mary's  was  granted  by 
the  lord  proprietor,  or  his  governor,  in  the  year  1670.  All 
of  the  provisions  of  that  charter  are  not  known  ;  yet  the 
extant  records  show  that  the  city  had  its  mayor,  recorder, 
aldermen,  and  common  council ;  that  the  mayor's  court  was 
held  by  the  mayor,  recorder,  and  aldermen  once  a  month  ; 
that  the  same  officers,  together  with  the  council,  made 
by-laws;  that  the  constable  was  an  important  officer  for 
executing  those  by-laws,  and  that  the  corporation  chose 
two  delegates  for  the  General  Assembly.1 

In  the  winter  of  1694-95  the  seat  of  the  provincial 
government  was  moved  from  the  city  of  St.  Mary's  to 
Anne  Arundel-Town,  later  named  Annapolis,  and  the  con- 
sequence was  that  the  first  city  lingered  but  a  few  years, 
and  then  disappeared.  The  second,  Annapolis,  was  erected 
in  the  year  1708,  when  Governor  Seymour,  with  no  di- 
rection from  the  crown  for  so  doing,  granted  its  charter. 
A  mayor,  a  recorder,  six  aldermen,  and  ten  common  coun- 
cilmen  were  made  a  corporate  body  with  capacity  to  sue 
and  be  sued.  The  mayor  was  to  hold  office  for  a  term  of 
only  one  year,  and  his  successor  was  to  be  chosen  from 
among  the  aldermen  by  all  the  members  of  the  corpora- 
tion. The  recorder,  the  aldermen,  and  the  common  coun- 
cilmen  were  to  hold  office  during  good  behavior,  and  a 
vacancy  in  any  of  those  offices  was  to  be  filled  by  the 
remaining  members  of  the  corporation.  The  recorder 
was  always  to  be  a  lawyer  ;  an  alderman  was  always  to 
be  chosen  from  among  the  common  councilmen  ;  and  a 
common  councilman  was  always  to  be  chosen  from  among 
the  freemen  of  the  city.  The  mayor,  the  recorder,  and 
the  aldermen  were  the  justices  of  the  peace,  and  also  jus- 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1681  to  1685-36,  p.  418. 


LOCAL   GOVERNMENT  421 

tices  of  the  court  of  hustings,  and  were  given  power  to 
appoint  the  other  necessary  officers  of  that  court ;  for 
the  first  six  years,  however,  the  sheriff  of  Anne  Arundel 
County  was  to  act  as  sheriff  of  Annapolis,  and  after  that, 
the  entire  corporation  was  to  appoint  one.  The  mayor, 
the  recorder,  the  aldermen,  and  five  senior  common  coun- 
cilmen  were  to  choose  the  city's  two  delegates  to  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly. 

The  corporation  was  given  power  to  make  by-laws  and 
ordinances  for  regulating  trade,  and  for  good  government 
within  the  precincts  of  said  city ;  but  every  such  law  or 
ordinance  was  to  be  agreeable  to  the  laws  in  force  within 
the  province.  It  could,  also,  impose  a  penalty,  not  exceed- 
ing forty  shillings,  when  necessary  to  secure  observance 
of  its  laws  or  ordinances.  It  was  permitted  to  hold  two 
markets  weekly  and  two  fairs  yearly.  It  was  empowered  V 
to  set  a  toll  on  goods,  cattle,  and  merchandise  sold  at  the 
fairs,  not  exceeding  sixpence  on  every  beast,  or  the  twen- 
tieth part  of  the  value  of  any  commodity.  It  was  empow- 
ered to  hold  a  court  of  piepowder  during  the  said  fairs 
for  the  determination  of  all  controversies  and  quarrels, 
according  to  the  usual  course  in  England  in  such  like 
cases.  And  it  was  permitted  to  enjoy  the  profits  of  such 
markets,  fairs,  and  court.  The  court  of  hustings  —  held 
by  the  mayor,  recorder,  and  aldermen,  or  any  three  of 
them  —  was  given  cognizance  of  cases  of  trespass  and 
ejectment,  of  cases  arising  out  of  writs  of  dower,  and  of 
all  other  actions  personal  and  mixed  in  which  the  value 
involved  did  not  exceed  <£6  10s.  or  seventeen  hundred 
pounds  of  tobacco.1 

The  General  Assembly  met  in  the  month  following  the 
grant  of  this  charter;  and  the  lower   house,  contending 

1  The  original  charter  is  in  the  land  office  at  Annapolis  ;  the  Chancery 
Records,  preserved  in  the  same  office,  contain  a  copy  of  it. 


422  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

that  the  governor  had  no  right  to  grant  it  without  an 
order  from  the  crown,  expelled  the  two  delegates  elected 
under  it,  and  especially  complained  because  the  members 
of  the  corporation  alone,  instead  of  all  the  freeholders, 
had  been  given  the  right  to  elect  those  delegates.1  When 
the  house  remained  firm,  the  governor  dissolved  the 
Assembly.  But  in  the  month  following  that  dissolution, 
the  governor  was  presented  with  a  petition,  signed  by  the 
corporation  and  the  greater  part  of  the  other  inhabitants  of 
the  city,  in  which  he  was  asked  that  the  two  delegates,  and 
those  who  were  to  fill  vacancies  in  the  common  council, 
should  be  elected  by  a  vote  of  all  the  freeholders  of  the 
city.  Also  in  this  petition  those  were  designated  as  free- 
holders who  owned  a  lot  of  land  with  a  house  built  thereon, 
according  to  law;  or  those  who  actually  resided  in  the  city 
and  had  a  visible  estate  of  <£20  sterling;  or  those  who, 
having  served  five  years  at  any  trade  in  the  city,  had  be- 
come householders  and  inhabitants  of  the  same.2  Although 
the  governor  granted  the  prayer  of  this  petition,  when  the 
Assembly  had  again  met,  the  newly  elected  house  asked 
him  to  show  his  authority  from  the  crown  for  erecting  cities. 
This  he  could  not  do  ;  and  it  was  only  after  a  conference  of 
some  members  from  both  houses  that  a  compromise  was 
agreed  upon,  whereby  the  charter  was  to  be  confirmed  by 
an  act  of  assembly.  That  act,  when  passed,  directed  that 
all  public  lands  and  buildings  in  the  city  should  remain  to 
the  uses  to  which  they  had  been  allotted  ;  that  the  former 
town  judges  should  hold  their  courts  as  usual ;  that  the 
justices  of  Anne  Arundel  County  should  exercise  their  usual 
jurisdiction  in  Annapolis;  that  by-laws  should  be  restrained 
to  the  residents  of  the  city  ;  and  the  act  also  reduced  the 
poll  rates  to  be  levied  on  commodities  sold  at  the  fairs.3 

i  U.  H.  J.,  September  27,  1708.  2  Chancery  Records. 

3L.  H.  J.,  December  1,  1708. 


CHAPTER   VII 

RELIGION,   THE   CHURCH,    AND   THE   CLERGY 

The  religious  disquietude  of  western  Europe,  during 
the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  exerted  a 
powerful  influence  in  determining  the  future  of  America. 
The  prevalence  of  religious  toleration,  however  imperfect, 
in  the  English  colonies,  as  against  intolerance  in  England 
herself,  caused  the  population  of  those  colonies  to  increase 
more  rapidly  than  it  otherwise  would.  At  the  same  time, 
the  strong  and  highly  centralized  government  of  the 
French  Jesuits  and  the  untiring  zeal  and  cunning  diplo- 
macy of  those  religious  enthusiasts  were  well  adapted  to 
the  winning  of  Indian  alliances.  And  in  the  contest  of 
the  English  and  the  French  for  dominion  in  America,  the 
superior  numbers  of  the  former  helped  to  win  them  suc- 
cess. What  is  more,  religious  unrest  not  only  aided  the 
English  in  getting  possession  of  the  country,  but  in  some 
of  the  colonies,  particularly  in  Maryland,  changes  in  re- 
ligious conditions  helped  to  remove  obstacles  that  impeded' 
progress  toward  a  more  just,  equitable,  humane,  and  be- 
neficent government.  The  first  lord  proprietor  found 
so  few  Catholics  whom  he  could  induce  to  settle  in  his 
province  that  he  thought  it  expedient  to  encourage  Prot- 
estants of  every  denomination  by  giving  them  his  promise 
that  they  should  be  permitted  to  enjoy  religious  tolera- 
tion. It  was,  however,  too  early  for  perfect  religious 
toleration  to  be  practised  ;  and  the  result  was  that  the 

423 


424  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

lord  proprietor  had  trouble  first  with  the  Catholics  and 
then  with  the  Protestants.  The  Protestant  opposition 
grew  with  the  increase  in  population,  and  became  the  occa- 
f  sion  as  well  as  one  of  the  deep-seated  causes  of  the 
Revolution  of  1689.  As  a  result  of  that  Revolution,  the 
popular  branch  of  the  legislature  enjoyed  a  large  accession 
of  power,  and  the  control  of  the  people  became  more  and 
more  extensive.  The  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  was 
established  by  act  of  assembly.  But  a  divided  jurisdic- 
tion left  it  without  the  necessary  government,  and  the 
unrestrained  immorality  of  several  of  the  clergy  robbed 
it  of  power  and  influence.  The  consequence  was  that, 
although  the  moral  standard  of  the  community  suffered 
a  temporary  decline,  the  Maryland  legislators  were  not 
carried  back  several  thousand  years  and  tied  to  the  law 
of  Moses,  nor  were  they  held  in  terror-stricken  suspense 
by  portrayals  of  a  fiery  abyss  ;  but  the  most  influential 
among  them,  lawyers  by  profession,  felt  the  pulse  of  the 
people,  and  then  strove  for  such  legislation  as  they  judged 
would  be  socially  expedient.  In  this  manner  the  chains, 
which  in  later  mediaeval  days  had  bound  the  end  to  the 
beginning,  were  broken,  and  the  spirit  of  progress  was 
liberated. 

The  second  lord  proprietor,  in  the  year  1678,  gave  the 
following  account  of  how  his  father,  forty-six  years  be- 
fore, had  made  his  promise  of  toleration  to  the  first  Mary- 
land colonists  :  "  At  the  first  planting  of  this  Provynce 
by  my  ffather  Albeit  he  had  an  Absolute  Liberty  given  to 
him  and  his  heires  to  carry  thither  any  Persons  out  of  the 
Dominions  that  belonged  to  the  Crowne  of  England  who 
should  be  found  Wylling  to  goe  thither  yett  when  he 
came  to  make  use  of  this  Liberty  He  found  very  few 
who  were  inclyned  to  goe  and  seat  themselves  in  those 
parts  But  such  as  for  some   Reason  or  other  could  not 


RELIGION,    THE   CHURCH,    AND   THE   CLERGY        425 

lyve  with  ease  in  other  places  And  of  these  a  great  part 
were  such  as  could  not  conforme  in  all  particulars  to  the 
several  Lawes  of  England  relateing  to  Religion  Many 
there  were  of  this  sort  of  People  who  declared  their  Wyll- 
ingness  to  goe  and  Plant  themselves  in  this  Provynce  so 
as  they  might  have  a  Generall  Toleraccon  settled  there 
by  a  Lawe  by  which  all  of  all  sorts  who  professed  Chris- 
tianity in  Generall  might  be  at  Liberty  to  Worshipp  God 
in  such  Manner  as  was  most  agreeable  with  their  respec- 
tive Judgmt8  and  Consciences  without  being  subject  to 
any  penaltyes  whatsoever  for  their  so  doeing  Provyded 
the  civill  peace  were  preserved  And  that  for  the  secureing 
the  civill  peace  and  preventing  all  heats  [and]  Feuds  which 
were  generally  observed  to  happen  amongst  such  as  differ 
in  oppynions  upon  Occasion  of  Reproachfull  Nicknames 
and  Reflecting  upon  each  Others  Oppynions  It  might  by 
the  same  Lawe  be  made  Penall  to  give  any  Offence  in 
that  kynde  these  were  the  condicons  proposed  by  such 
as  were  willing  to  goe  and  be  the  first  planters  of  this 
Provynce  and  without  the  complying  with  these  con- 
dicons in  all  probability  This  Provynce  had  never  beene 
planted."1 

After  this  agreement  had  been  reached,  the  first  colo- 
nists set  out  for  their  new  home.  Of  their  number  ninety 
were  freemen  and  one  hundred  and  thirty  were  women, 
children,  and  servants  ;  of  the  freemen,  a  majority  were 
Catholics,  while  of  the  servants,  a  majority  were  Protes- 
tants. In  view  of  these  proportions,  and  in  conformity 
with  the  agreement,  the  lord  proprietor  instructed  the 
officers,  who  were  Catholics,  to  cause  all  acts  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  religion  to  be  done  as  privately  as  pos- 
sible, to  be  silent  upon  all  occasions  of  discourse  con- 
cerning matters  of  religion,   and   to  give  no  offence  to 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1667  to  1687-88,  p.  267  et  seq. 


426  MARYLAND   AS   A    PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

Protestants,  but  to  treat  them  with  as  much  mildness  and 
favor  as  justice  would  permit. 

But  while  this  anxiety  of  the  lord  proprietor  for  his 
own  temporal  or  economic  welfare  was  leading  him  into 
the  forward  movement  of  religious  toleration,  his  con- 
scious endeavor  to  provide  for  the  spiritual  welfare  of 
the  colonists  soon  threatened  not  only  to  bring  temporal 
destruction  upon  himself,  but  to  establish  in  the  colony 
a  corrupt  ecclesiastical  tyranny  against  which  his  own 
countrymen  had  fought  for  nearly  four  hundred  years, 
and  which  they  had  at  last  overthrown.  Father  Henry 
More,  the  English  Provincial  for  the  Society  of  Jesus,  was 
the  lord  proprietor's  chief  spiritual  adviser.  He  is  said  to 
have  agreed  to  give  his  support  in  adopting  and  applying 
the  principle  of  toleration,  and  at  the  same  time  to  have 
offered  the  assistance  of  his  society  in  the  colonizing  enter- 
prise. Accordingly,  three  Jesuit  priests  —  Andrew  White, 
Thomas  Copley,  and  John  Altham  —  were  sent  over  as 
missionaries  with  the  first  colonists.  They  had  been  in 
the  province  but  three  or  four  years  when  the  lord  pro- 
prietor was  startled  by  being  informed  that  they  claimed 
the  right  to  accept,  for  their  society,  gifts  of  land  from 
the  Indians  ;  that  they  claimed  that  in  a  new  and  unsettled 
country  the  canon  law  prevailed  proprio  vigore  without 
license,  assent,  or  adoption  by  prince  or  people ;  and, 
hence,  that  by  such  divine  law  the  clergy  of  Maryland 
were  entitled  —  as  an  immediate  gift  from  Christ  to 
the  church  —  to  all  the  exemptions  from  lay  jurisdiction 
that  had  ever  been  enjoyed  anywhere  by  the  church  of 
Rome. 

Such  exemptions  had  been  introduced  into  England 
under  the  Norman  kings,  becoming  most  extensive  during 
the  reign  of  Stephen  ;  and  although  they  were  temporarily 
narrowed  by  the  Constitutions  of  Clarendon  adopted  in  the 


RELIGION,   THE   CHURCH,    AND   THE   CLERGY        427  ,  J) 

year  1164,  yet  England  was  not  rid  of  them  until  after  d 
Henry  VIII  became  head  of  the  church.  Could  they  ^ 
have  enjoyed  those  exemptions,  the  Maryland  priests  would 
have  received  large  tracts  of  land  from  their  Indian  con- 
verts ;  and  by  having  cognizance  of  testamentary  cases, 
they  might  have  indulged  in  the  old  abuse  of  paying 
legacies  to  the  church  or  other  pious  causes  before  paying 
creditors,  heirs,  or  legatees.  In  this  way,  therefore,  the 
lord  proprietor  would  have  been  deprived  of  much  of  his 
territory,  and  would  have  lost  so  much  control  of  the  gov- 
ernment that  toleration  and  the  purpose  for  which  he  had 
promised  it  would  have  been  defeated. 

Upon  hearing  of  the  claims  of  the  priests,  the  lord 
proprietor  bestirred  himself,  made  John  Lewger  his  secre- 
tary, and  sent  him  over  to  assist  the  governor.  Lewger, 
once  a  Protestant  but  now  a  Catholic,  had  been  edu- 
cated at  Oxford  University,  and  was  well  acquainted 
with  the  history  of  the  struggle  in  England.  As  soon 
as  he  arrived  in  the  province,  he  entered  upon  his  duties 
with  faithfulness  and  diligence,  and  gradually  gained 
the  support  of  the  Assembly  against  the  priests.  But 
thereupon  the  priests  absented  themselves  from  the  As- 
sembly under  pretence  of  sickness,  began  to  lay  their 
complaints  as  well  as  their  claims  before  the  lord  proprie- 
tor, and  continued  to  receive  land  from  the  Indians. 

Father  Copley,  in  a  letter  to  the  lord  proprietor,  com- 
plained that  Lewger  held  that  the  church  was  entitled 
to  no  privileges  by  divine  law,  nor  to  any  privileges  what- 
ever except  such  as  the  commonwealth  granted  it.  After 
denying  this,  the  reverend  father  expressed  the  hope  that 
a  converted  Indian  king  might  be  permitted  to  give  him, 
who  had  helped  to  save  his  soul,  enough  land  to  build  a 
church  or  a  house  on,  and  asked  the  lord  proprietor  to 
consider  whether  he  who  restricted  ecclesiastical  liberty 


428  MARYLAND    AS    A    PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

in  this  point  would  not  incur  danger  of  excommunication. 
Finally,  as  the  least  consideration  in  favor  of  himself  and 
his  fellow-priests,  he  asked  that  the  church  and  the 
priests'  houses  might  have  the  privileges  of  sanctuary  ; 
that,  though  many  ecclesiastical  privileges  were  relin- 
quished for  the  satisfaction  of  the  home  government,  the 
priests  might  decide  when  and  where  such  relinquishment 
was  necessary;  that  priests,  their  domestic  servants,  and 
at  least  one-half  their  planting  servants  should  be  exempt 
from  public  taxation ;  and  that  they  might  live  and  trade 
with  the  Indians  without  license  from  the  governor.1 
Nor  did  the  priests  fail  to  gather  around  them  a  party 
of  laymen  in  support  of  their  cause  ;  and  what  was  espe- 
cially alarming,  the  great  planter  and  military  leader, 
Thomas  Cornwallis,  was  in  that  party.  He,  too,  wrote  to 
the  lord  proprietor,  saying  that  the  security  of  his  con- 
science was  the  first  condition  that  he  had  expected  from 
the  government,  and  he  declared  that  he  would  sacrifice 
himself  and  all  that  he  possessed  in  defence  of  God's  honor 
and  the  church's  right  rather  than  willingly  consent  to 
anything  that  might  not  stand  with  the  good  con- 
science of  a  real  Catholic.2  Moreover,  the  lord  pro- 
prietor was  informed  that  the  priests  had  declared  to 
Secretary  Lewger  that  they  were  ready  to  shed  their 
blood  in  the  defence  of  the  faith  and  the  liberty  of  the 
church. 

After  the  lord  proprietor  had  received  this  intelligence 
and  had  had  an  interview  with  Father  White,  who  had 
gone  to  England,  he  was  more  aroused  than  ever,  and 
wrote  to  the  governor  the  following :  "  I  am  satisfied  in 
my  judgment  that  they  do  design  my  destruction,  and 
I  have  good  cause  to  suspect  that  if  they  cannot  make 
or  maintain  a  party  by  degrees  amongst  the  English  to 

1  Calvert  Papers,  No.  1,  p.  162  et  seq.  2  Ibid.,  p.  172  et  seq. 


RELIGION,    THE   CHURCH,   AND   THE   CLERGY        429 

bring  their  ends  about,  they  will  endeavor  to  do  it  by 
the  Indians  withal  under  pretence  of  God's  honor  and 
the  Christian  faith,  which  shall  be  the  mask  and  vizard 
to  hide  their  other  designs  withal.  If  all  things  that 
clergymen  should  do  upon  these  pretences  should  be 
accounted  just  and  to  proceed  from  God,  laymen  were 
the  basest  and  most  wretched  slaves  upon  earth.  And 
if  the  greatest  saint  upon  earth  should  intrude  himself 
into  my  house  against  my  will,  and  in  despite  of  me  with 
intention  to  save  the  souls  of  my  family,  but  withal  give 
me  just  cause  to  suspect  that  he  likewise  designed  my 
temporal  destruction,  or  that  being  already  in  my  house 
doth  actually  practise  it,  although  withal  he  perhaps  do 
many  spiritual  goods,  yet  certainly  I  may  and  ought  to 
preserve  myself  by  the  expulsion  of  such  an  enemy  and 
by  providing  others  to  perform  the  spiritual  good  he 
did.  .  .  .  For  the  law  of  nature  teacheth  this,  that  it 
is  lawful  for  every  man  in  his  own  defence,  vim  vi 
repellere."1 

But  by  the  time  the  lord  proprietor  was  writing  this, 
his  victory  over  the  priests  was  nearly  won.  The  gov- 
ernor and  the  secretary  had  procured  the  passage  of  acts 
of  assembly  whereby  the  jurisdiction  over  marriage  and 
the  cognizance  of  testamentary  cases  were  assigned  to  civil 
officers.  The  lord  proprietor  had  appealed  to  the  higher 
authorities,  and  Father  More  had  agreed  to  renounce  all 
claim  on  the  part  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  to  any  exemptions 
from  the  operation  of  the  law  of  the  land,  had  executed  a 
release  in  full  of  all  lands  acquired  by  the  priests  from  the 
Indians,  had  recognized  that  there  could  be  no  valid  grant 
of  land  in  the  province  without  the  lord  proprietor's  sanc- 
tion, and  had  agreed  that  thereafter  no  Jesuit  priest 
should  be  sent  to  Maryland  without  the  lord  proprietor's 

1  Calvert  Papers,  No.  1,  p.  217  et  seq. 


430  MARYLAND    AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

license.  Acting  upon  this  agreement,  the  lord  proprietor 
recalled  the  troublesome  priests,  sent  out  others  to  take 
their  places,  and,  in  the  year  1641,  issued  new  conditions 
of  plantation  which,  in  effect,  put  into  force  in  Maryland 
the  prohibitions  of  all  the  Statutes  of  Mortmain  that  had 
up  to  that  time  been  enacted  in  England.1 

Strictly  between  Catholics  and  Protestants  there  seems 
to  have  been  little  disturbance  for  ten  years  after  the 
landing  of  the  first  colonists.  However,  in  the  year  1638, 
one  Lewis,  a  Catholic,  rebuked  two  servants  for  reading 
a  Protestant  book  and  spoke  offensively  of  Protestant 
ministers ;  and  for  this  offence  he  was  fined  by  the  gov- 
ernor and  put  under  bonds  to  behave  better  in  the  future.2 
Again,  in  the  year  1642,  one  Gerrard,  also  a  Catholic,  took 
from  the  chapel  at  St.  Mary's  the  key  as  well  as  some 
books,  on  the  ground  that  he  had  some  title  to  the  chapel 
and  its  contents.  Thereupon,  the  Protestants,  who  it 
seems  had  enjoyed  the  use  of  the  chapel,  presented  the 
Assembly  with  a  complaint  against  him  and  prayed  for 
redress,  and  that  body  found  him  guilty  of  a  misdemeanor, 
ordered  him  to  return  the  key  and  the  books,  to  relin- 
quish all  title  to  them  and  the  chapel,  and  to  pay  a  fine 
of  five  hundred  pounds  of  tobacco  toward  the  maintenance 
of  the  first  minister  that  should  arrive.3 

More  serious  trouble  between  Catholics  and  Protestants 
was  near.  The  government  continued  to  be  administered 
by  Catholics,  and  the  promised  toleration  act  was  not 
passed.  The  consequence  was  that,  soon  after  the  civil 
war  broke  out  in  the  mother  country,  a  Protestant  opposi- 

1  Johnson,  "The  Foundation  of  Maryland  and  the  Origin  of  the  Act 
concerning  Religion." 

2  Bozman,  Vol.  II,  pp,  84,  85. 

8  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1637-38  to  1664, 
p.  119. 


RELIGION,    THE   CHURCH,    AND   THE   CLERGY        431 

tion  arose  in  Maryland  ;  and  in  that  opposition  Claiborne 
and  Ingle  found  the  principal  support  •  of  their  rebellion. 
While  enjoying  their  temporary  triumph,  the  rebellious 
Protestants  presented  Parliament  with  a  petition  in  which 
they  complained  that  the  proprietary  government,  besides 
having  been  generally  tyrannical,  had  by  seduction  and 
force  turned  many  from  the  Protestant  to  the  Catholic 
faith.  The  committee  of  lords  and  commons  for  for- 
eign plantations,  which  considered  the  petition,  decided 
that  the  lord  proprietor  had  forfeited  his  rights,  recom- 
mended that  his  charter  should  be  declared  null  and  void, 
and  further  recommended  that  the  government  of  the 
province  should  be  intrusted  to  Protestants.1  An  ordi- 
nance for  those  purposes  was  accordingly  drawn  up  by 
the  committee,  was  presented  to  Parliament,  .and  was 
passed  by  the  House  of  Lords.  But  here  the  tide  turned. 
The  rebellion  in  the  province  was  suppressed.  The  lord 
proprietor  obtained  a  hearing  from  Parliament,  and  pre- 
vailed upon  that  body  to  stop  proceedings  against  him. 
However,  those  proceedings  of  the  Maryland  Protes- 
tants, together  with  the  progress  of  affairs  in  the  mother 
country,  were  not  without  lasting  effect.  As  a  guard 
against  the  recurrence  of  such  a  dangerous  juncture,  the 
lord  proprietor  made  a  Protestant,  William  Stone,  his 
governor,  and  divided  the  places  in  the  council  equally 
between  Catholics  and  Protestants.  At  the  same  time, 
in  the  interest  of  toleration,  he  caused  the  following 
clause  to  be  inserted  in  the  governor's  oath  :  "  I  will  not 
by  myself  nor  any  person  directly  or  indirectly  trouble, 
molest,  or  discountenance  any  person  whatsoever  in  the 
said  Province  professing  to  believe  in  Jesus  Christ,  and 
in  particular  any  Roman  Catholic  for  or  in  respect  of  his 
or   her   religion   or  in   his   or  her   free   exercise  thereof 

i  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1636  to  1667,  pp.  164,  165. 


432  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

within  the  said  Province  so  as  they  be  not  unfaithful  to 
his  said  Lordship  nor  molest  nor  conspire  against  the  civil 
government  established  here,  nor  will  I  make  any  differ- 
ence of  persons  in  conferring  offices,  rewards,  or  favors 
proceeding  from  the  authority  which  his  said  Lordship 
hath  conferred  upon  me  as  his  Lieutenant  here  for  in 
respect  of  their  said  religion  respectively,  but  merely  as  I 
shall  find  them  faithful  and  well  deserving  of  his  said 
Lordship  .  .  .  and  if  any  other  officer  or  person  what- 
soever shall,  during  the  time  of  my  being  his  said  Lord- 
ship's Lieutenant  here  without  my  consent  or  privity, 
molest  or  disturb  any  person  within  this  province  pro- 
fessing to  believe  in  Jesus  Christ  merely  for  or  in  respect 
of  his  or  her  religion  or  the  free  exercise  thereof,  upon 
notice  or  complaint  thereof  made  unto  me  I  will  apply 
my  power  and  authority  to  relieve  and  protect  any  person 
so  molested  or  troubled  whereby  he  may  have  right  done 
him  for  any  damage  which  he  shall  suffer  in  that  kind  and 
to  the  utmost  of  my  power  will  cause  all  and  every  such 
person  or  persons  in  that  manner  to  be  punished."1  The 
first  provision  of  this  clause  was  also  inserted  in  the  oath 
prescribed  for  each  member  of  the  council. 

Finally,  in  the  year  1649,  before  the  close  of  the  first 
year  of  the  first  Protestant  administration,  the  toleration 
act  was  passed.  It  prescribed  the  penalty  of  death  and 
confiscation  of  property  for  blasphemy,  for  denying  Christ 
to  be  the  Son  of  God,  or  for  unbelief  in  the  Trinity.  But 
it  directed  that  no  one  professing  to  believe  in  Jesus 
Christ  should  be  in  any  way  "  troubled,  molested,  or  dis- 
countenanced for  or  in  respect  of  his  or  her  religion  or 
in  the  free  exercise  thereof,"  or  be  in  "  any  way  compelled 
to  the  belief  or  exercise  of  any  other  religion  against  his 
or  her  consent."      He  who  in  person  or  estate  wilfully 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1636  to  1667,  p.  209  et  seq. 


RELIGION,    THE   CHURCH,    AND    THE   CLERGY        433 

wronged,  disturbed,  or  molested  any  one  professing  to 
believe  in  Jesus  Christ  for  or  in  respect  of  his  or  her 
religion  or  the  free  exercise  thereof,  was  to  be  compelled 
to  pay  treble  damages  to  the  party  so  wronged  or  molested 
and  also  to  forfeit  twenty  shillings.  Furthermore,  the  act 
forbade  the  calling  of  one  another  by  reviling  names,  on 
account  of  religious  differences,  such  as  :  Heretic,  Papist, 
Idolator,  Jesuit,  Puritan,  Independent,  Separatist,  Lutheran, 
Calvinist,  Brownist,  Anabaptist,  Antinomian,  and  the  like. 
Thus  far,  then,  it  appears  that  the  lord  proprietor,  soon 
after  he  began  to  make  preparations  for  sending  out  his 
first  colonists,  resolved  to  promote  religious  toleration  as  a 
means  of  inducing  a  greater  number  of  people  to  become 
his  tenants.  Having  adopted  this  policy,  he  intrusted 
the  government  to  officers  who  were  of  the  Catholic  faith  ; 
but  at  the  same  time  he  instructed  those  officers  not  to 
offend  the  Protestants.  All  went  well  until  the  news  of 
civil  war  in  the  mother  country  reached  the  province ; 
for,  until  then,  there  are  recorded  only  two  instances  of 
trouble  between  Catholics  and  Protestants,  and  in  dealing 
with  those  troubles  the  Catholic  officers  and  the  General 
Assembly  showed  a  willingness  to  protect  the  Protestants 
and  to  punish  the  offending  Catholics.  But  as  the  civil 
war  progressed,  the  lord  proprietor  saw  that  if  he  was  to 
prevent  the  loss  of  his  province,  he  must  fill  the  control- 
ling number  of  offices  with  Protestants.  He  did  so,  and 
at  the  same  time  took  care  to  uphold  toleration  in  general, 
and  the  Catholics  in  particular,  by  the  insertion  of  a 
strongly  worded  toleration  clause  in  the  oath  of  the  gov- 
ernor as  well  as  in  that  of  each  member  of  the  council. 
The  bulwark  in  defence  of  toleration  to  all  professing 
Trinitarian  Christianity  was  made  about  as  complete  as  a 
legislative  body  could  make  it  when  the  General  Assembly 
passed  the  famous  toleration  act  of  1649. 

2p 


434  MARYLAND    AS    A    PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

But  while  the  lord  proprietor  was  striving  to  guard  his 
own  interests  by  the  promotion  of  religious  harmony  and 
harmony  between  the  government  of  his  province  and  that 
of  the  mother  country,  the  Virginia  government  defied 
the  home  government  and  became  intolerant  toward  those 
Virginians  who  would  not  conform  to  the  Church  of 
England.  Many  of  the  non-conformists  found  a  new 
home  in  Maryland.  The  home  government  sent  out  com- 
missioners to  reduce  Virginia  to  submission.  The  un- 
grateful Puritans,  once  molested  in  Virginia,  but  now  — 
in  their  new  home  —  enjoying  the  protection  of  a  tolerant 
government,  made  the  despatch  of  this  commission  an 
occasion  to  unite  with  Claiborne,  the  archenemy  of  Mary- 
land, for  the  overthrow  of  the  proprietary  government. 
For  about  four  years  the  province  was  governed  by  Puritan 
commissioners,  and  the  first  Assembly  called  by  them 
passed  an  act  denying  protection  to  Roman  Catholics  and 
to  members  of  the  Church  of  England.  Oliver  Cromwell, 
however,  was  more  tolerant  than  the  Maryland  Puritans. 
The  lord  proprietor  found  favor  in  his  eyes,  and  thereby 
the  proprietary  government  was  fully  restored  on  condi- 
tion that  the  toleration  act  should  not  be  repealed. 

Furthermore,  as  a  favor  to  Quakers,  it  was  agreed  in 
the  first  restoration  Assembly  that  any  inhabitant  of  the 
province  might,  instead  of  taking  the  oath  of  fidelity, 
subscribe  the  following  engagement,  "  I,  A.  B.,  do 
promise  and  engage  to  submit  to  the  authority  of  the 
Right  Honorable  Cecilius  Lord  Baltimore  and  his  heirs 
within  this  province  of  Maryland  according  to  his  patent 
of  the  said  Province,  and  to  his  present  Lieutenant  and 
other  officers  here,  by  his  Lordship  appointed  to  whom 
I  will  be  aiding  and  assisting  and  will  not  obey  or  assist 
any  here  in  opposition  to  them."1 

1  Proceedings  and  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1637-38  to  1664,  p.  370. 


RELIGION,    THE   CHURCH,    AND   THE   CLERGY        435 

Unhappily,  —  if  the  charges  against  them  were  not 
false,  —  the  more  ardent  of  that  sect  did  not  regard  this 
as  a  sufficient  concession  to  them.  Under  their  leaders, 
Thurston  and  Cole,  some  of  them  not  only  refused  to 
subscribe  the  engagement,  but  they  persuaded  others,  who 
had  subscribed  it,  to  renounce  and  disown  it.  They 
refused  to  bear  arms  when  there  was  danger  from  the 
Indians,  and  they  did  all  they  could  to  dissuade  others 
from  doing  so.  They  would  not  take  the  juror's  oath  or 
give  testimony  in  court.  In  all  things  they  insisted  that 
"  they  were  to  be  governed  by  God's  law  and  the  light 
within  them,  and  not  by  man's  law."  It  was,  therefore, 
not  to  be  expected  that  a  government,  having  any  regard 
for  the  law  of  self-preservation,  could  tolerate  such  prin- 
ciples ;  and,  consequently,  the  governor  and  council,  in 
July,  1659,  passed  an  order  directing  that  such  insubordi- 
nate Quakers  as  returned  after  having  been  once  banished 
should  be  whipped  from  constable  to  constable  until  they 
were  again  out  of  the  province.1  Happily,  it  was  not 
necessary  for  the  order  to  be  continued  after  October, 
1660  ;  and  it  is  not  certain  that  there  was  a  single  instance 
of  its  execution. 

The  endeavor  to  maintain  toleration  while  the  mind  of  the 
people  was  yet  so  narrow  and  exclusive  met  with  many  ob- 
stacles. The  number  of  Protestants  increased  faster  than 
the  number  of  Catholics.  The  Puritans  who  had  once 
helped  to  overthrow  the  government  never  became  friendly 
to  it.  Although  several  of  the  offices  were  filled  with  Prot- 
estants, the  lord  proprietor,  the  governor,  and  a  controlling 
number  of  the  council  were  Catholics.  The  popular  branch 
of  the  legislature  was  Protestant,  while  all  the  other 
branches  were  Catholic ;  and  hence  a  growing  political 
opposition   was   combined   with   religious    differences   to 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1636  to  1667,  p.  362. 


436  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

increase  the  antipathy  between  Catholics  and  Protestants. 
There  were  those  in  the  lower  house  who  desired  a  law 
for  the  maintenance  of  ministers,  but  the  very  mention 
of  it  aroused  bitter  feeling.  The  population  was  too 
sparse  and  divided  among  too  many  religious  sects  for  an 
adequate  maintenance  of  ministers  by  voluntary  contribu- 
tions. Religious  discord  was  the  great  obstacle  to  the 
passing  of  a  bill  for  founding  a  school  or  college.  Reli- 
gious worship  was  consequently  neglected,  and  children 
grew  up  in  ignorance  and  superstition.  Catholicism 
flourished  at  the  expense  of  Protestantism.  The  drudgery 
of  tobacco  culture  was  depressing  rather  than  inspiring ; 
and  the  people  became  so  morally  depraved,  that  an  out- 
cry against  the  conditions  reached  the  mother  country. 
In  the  year  1676  the  Rev.  John  Yeo,  in  a  letter  to  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  wrote :  "  There  are  in  this 
province  ten  or  twelve  counties  and  in  them  at  least 
twenty  thousand  souls  and  but  three  Protestant  ministers 
of  us  that  are  conformable  to  the  doctrine  and  discipline 
of  the  Church  of  England.  .  .  .  No  care  is  taken  or  pro- 
vision made  for  building  up  Christians  in  the  Protestant 
religion  for  want  of  which  not  only  many  daily  fall  away  to 
Popery,  Quakerism,  or  fanaticism,  but  also  the  Lord's  day 
is  profaned,  religion  despised,  and  all  notorious  vices  com- 
mitted so  that  it  is  become  a  Sodom  of  uncleanness  and 
a  pest  house  of  iniquity."  l 

Mr.  Yeo  desired  that  a  tax  should  be  levied  for  the 
maintenance  of  ministers  of  the  Church  of  England,  and 
he  undoubtedly  exaggerated  the  evils  of  the  situation. 
But  however  that  may  be,  he  was  instrumental  in 
causing  the  home  government  to  look  with  ill  favor  on 
the  proprietary  government  and  to  interfere  with  the  same. 
The  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  referred  the  letter  to  the 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1667  to  1687-88,  pp.  130,  131. 


RELIGION,   THE   CHURCH,    AND    THE   CLERGY        437 

Bishop  of  London,  who,  in  turn,  referred  it  to  the  lord 
proprietor.  In  his  reply  the  lord  proprietor  stated  that, 
as  at  least  three-fourths  of  the  inhabitants  were  Presby- 
terians, Independents,  Anabaptists,  and  Quakers,  it  would 
be  a  most  difficult  task  to  prevail  upon  the  lower  house  to 
assent  to  a  law  for  compelling  so  large  a  proportion  of  the 
people  to  maintain  ministers  of  another  persuasion  ;  and 
he  further  stated  that  he  thought  it  best  for  the  members 
of  each  sect  to  support  their  ministers  by  voluntary  con- 
tributions.1 This  reply  being  unsatisfactory,  the  matter 
was  laid  before  the  king's  privy  council ;  and  that  body 
requested  the  lord  proprietor  to  do  something  for  the 
maintenance  of  ministers  of  the  Church  of  England  and 
to  put  all  offices  and  firearms  in  the  hands  of  Protes- 
tants. But  the  lord  proprietor  did  little  more -than  to 
show  that  about  one-half  of  the  offices  had  been  held 
by  Protestants  and  to  contend  that,  by  the  charter,  he 
alone,  and  not  the  king  or  the  Bishop  of  London,  had 
the  right  to  choose  ministers.  He  could  not,  however, 
stem  the  tide  of  Protestant  opposition.  The  more  unscru- 
pulous spread  a  rumor  that  the  Catholics  had  formed  a 
plot  with  the  Indians  to  slaughter  all  Protestants.  A 
Protestant  revolution  in  the  mother  country  placed  a 
Protestant  king  and  queen  on  the  throne,  but  the  Catholic 
government  of  Maryland  failed  to  proclaim  them.  The 
result  was  that  the  lord  proprietor's  Catholic  govern- 
ment was  overthrown,  and  in  its  place  the  new  king 
and  queen  set  up  a  Protestant  government  of  their 
own.2 

The  first  Assembly  convened  by  the  royal  government 
passed  the  act,  in  the  year  1692,  for  the  establishment,  in 
Maryland,  of  the  Church  of  England.      By  authority  and 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1667  to  1687-88,  pp.  132,  133,  252,  253, 
261,  262,  263.  2  Supra,  pp.  35-42. 


438  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

direction  of  this  act,  each  county  was  divided  into  par- 
ishes, and  vestrymen  were  chosen.  The  vestry  of  each 
parish  was  made  a  corporate  body  of  trustees  and  directed 
to  build  a  church.  And  a  tax  of  forty  pounds  of  tobacco 
per  poll  was  to  be  levied  each  year  for  the  maintenance 
of  the  minister,  or,  when  there  was  no  minister,  for  such 
pious  purposes  as  the  vestry  should  direct.1 

In  the  year  1694  a  supplementary  act  was  passed.  One 
year  later,  both  the  principal  and  the  supplementary 
act  were  superseded  by  a  third.  It  seems  that  the  crown 
disallowed  this  one  ;  and  so,  in  the  year  1696,  a  fourth 
act  was  passed.  But  in  it  was  the  following  objectionable 
clause,  "  That  the  Church  of  England,  within  the  Prov- 
ince, shall  enjoy  all  and  singular  her  Rights,  Privileges, 
and  Freedoms,  as  "it  is  now,  or  shall  be  at  any  time  here- 
after, established  by  Law  in  the  Kingdom  of  England  : 
And  that  his  Majesty's  Subjects  of  this  Province  shall  en- 
joy all  their  Rights  and  Liberties,  according  to  the  Laws 
and  Statutes  of  the  Kingdom  of  England,  in  all  Matters 
and  Causes  where  the  Laws  of  the  Province  are  silent."  2 
The  Quakers  presented  a  petition  against  the  act.  The 
Catholics  fought  it,  though  in  secret.  And  so,  in  Novem- 
ber, 1699,  the  crown  disallowed  it,  alleging  as  the  reason 
that  the  clause  quoted  above  was  of  another  nature  than 
that  set  forth  in  the  title.  But  the  clergy  of  the  once 
established  church,  realizing  their  own  weakness  and  the 
strength  of  their  enemies,  had  implored  the  Bishop  of 
London  to  send  them  a  superintendent,  commissary,  or 
suffragan,  invested  with  sufficient  authority  to  redress 
what  was  amiss  and  supply  what  was  wanting.  The 
Assembly  had  done  its  part  toward  providing  for  the 
maintenance  of  such  an  officer  by  praying  that  to  his 
office  should  be  annexed  that  of  judge  of  probate — worth 

1  Supra,  pp.  410-412.  2  L.  H.  J.,  July  3-10,  1696. 


RELIGION,   THE   CHURCH,    AND   THE   CLERGY        439 

about  .£300  sterling  per  annum.  The  Bishop  had  re- 
sponded by  appointing  Dr.  Thomas  Bray  to  be  his  com- 
missary in  Maryland.  For  a  few  years  Dr.  Bray  remained 
in  England,  laboring  diligently  in  the  endeavor  to  provide 
the  province  with  parochial  libraries  and  more  ministers  ; 
but  as  soon  as  the  crown  had  disallowed  the  act  of  1696, 
he  hastened  to  Maryland  to  direct  the  passage  of  another. 
He  received  a  hearty  welcome,  and  seems  to  have  exerted 
much  influence  with  the  Assembly,  which,  but  for  his 
encouragement,  might  not  have  passed  another  church 
act.  As  it  was,  such  an  act  was  passed  in  the  year  1700  ; 
but,  strange  to  say,  its  authors  were  guilty  of  an  over- 
sight, or  else  they  were  so  regardless  of  the  power  of  the 
enemy  that  they  struck  a  blow  at  all  religious  dissent  by 
inserting  a  clause  requiring  the  use  of  the  book  of  com- 
mon prayer  "  in  every  church  or  house  of  public  worship." 
Dr.  Bray  was  sent  to  England  to  repel  the  assaults  of  the 
enemy  and  to  secure  if  possible  the  crown's  assent.  His 
presence  was  needed,  for  both  Quakers  and  Catholics 
were  again  busy.  The  one  objectionable  clause  was  the 
vulnerable  point.  When  it  was  seen  that  the  act  would 
not  receive  the  crown's  assent  as  it  then  stood,  Dr.  Bray 
asked  permission  of  the  board  of  trade  to  have  a  new  bill 
—  to  be  drawn  according  to  the  instructions  of  the  said 
board  —  sent  to  Maryland  for  passage  by  the  Assembly 
without  amendment.  This  was  granted.  Dr.  Bray's  bill 
became  a  law  in  the  year  1701-02,  and  with  but  few 
later  amendments  it  remained  in  force  until  the  Revolution 
of  1776. 

As  an  addition  to  the  law  of  1692,  the  law  of  1702 
required  the  annual  election,  by  the  freeholders,  of  two 
church  wardens  for  each  parish,  and  the  appointment,  by 
the  vestry,  of  a  parish  register.  It  required  the  vestry  to 
meet  once  a  month.     It  changed  the  tenure  of  office  of 


440  MARYLAND   AS    A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

vestrymen.  It  authorized  the  vestry  and  church  wardens, 
when  additional  money  was  needed  for  parochial  purposes, 
to  ask  the  county  court  to  levy  a  parochial  tax  not  exceed- 
ing ten  pounds  of  tobacco  per  poll  in  any  one  year.  It 
regulated  marriages.  It  directed  that  the  minister  should 
be  appointed,  presented,  or  inducted  by  the  governor.  It 
forbade  any  minister  to  hold  more  than  one  parish  at  any 
one  time,  unless,  by  an  agreement  of  the  vestries  of  two 
adjacent  parishes,  he  should  be  permitted  to  hold  both. 
Finally,  it  not  only  prescribed  toleration  to  Quakers  and 
all  other  Protestant  dissenters,  but  it  removed  the  political 
disabilities  of  the  Quakers. 

Not  only  was  this  institution  established  in  the  face  of 
an  alert  opposition,  but  until  the  end  of  the  colonial  era  it 
was  the  object  of  repeated  attacks.  The  first  and  princi- 
pal trouble  lay  in  the  want  of  a  responsible  authority  to 
discipline  the  clergy.  The  appointment  of  Dr.  Bray  was  a 
step  well  taken.  During  his  short  stay  in  the  province  he 
summoned  the  clergy  to  a  general  visitation  at  Annapolis, 
and  there  gave  strong  proof  of  his  zeal  and  power  to  rid 
the  province  of  all  clergymen  of  profligate  lives.  But  not 
long  after  his  return  to  England  he  was  called  to  other 
labors,  and  never  came  back  to  resume  his  work  in  Mary- 
land. He,  however,  felt  that  the  church  was  greatly  in 
need  of  a  bishop  to  continue  the  work  which  he,  as  com- 
missary, had  begun,  and  for  the  necessary  maintenance 
proposed  that  the  bishop  be  given  the  office  of  judge  of 
probate  and  also  a  well-stocked  plantation.  He  even 
bargained  with  the  lord  proprietor  for  five  hundred  acres 
of  land,  and  collected  considerable  money  toward  paying 
for  the  same.  He  tried  to  get  a  bill  passed  by  Parliament 
for  establishing  a  suffragan  bishop.  Failing  in  this,  he, 
after  consultation  with  the  Bishop  of  London,  named  a  man 
to  succeed  him  as  commissary  ;  and  it  was  further  agreed 


RELIGION,    THE   CHURCH,    AND   THE   CLERGY        441 

between  the  Bishop  of  London  and  himself  that  the  new 
commissary  should  have  the  right  to  induct  ministers, 
while  the  governor  should  retain  the  right  of  presenting 
them.1 

But  at  this  stage  in  the  proceedings,  Colonel  John 
Seymour  was  appointed  governor.  Before  he  embarked 
the  plan  for  establishing  the  office  of  commissary  was  sub- 
mitted to  him  ;  for  its  success  depended  upon  his  willing- 
ness to  forego  the  right  of  induction,  and  upon  his  support 
of  the  proposal  to  make  the  commissary  the  judge  of  pro- 
bate. Unfortunately  for  the  future  of  the  church,  Sey- 
mour was  one  of  those  incompetent  war  governors,  so 
common  in  the  royal  provinces  ;  and  upon  being  told  of 
the  plan,  he  seemed  to  fear  that  Dr.  Bray  had  been  trying 
to  take  advantage  of  Mm,  flew  into  a  passion,  and  was  more 
than  once  afterward  heard  to  declare  that  he  would  have 
no  commissary  in  the  province.2  Had  he  acted  less  self- 
ishly and  more  discreetly  in  this  matter,  perhaps  he 
would  not  have  felt  called  upon,  the  year  before  he  died, 
to  address  the  following  words  to  the  Assembly,  "  And 
now,  Gentlemen,  give  me  leave  to  tell  you  it's  high  time 
for  you  that  represent  the  whole  Province  to  look  into 
the  many  Immoralities  of  this  poor  deluded  Country, 
where  Drunkenness,  Adultery,  Sabbath-breaking,  and  Per- 
jury are  a  Jest,  horrid  Murders  stifled,  and  the  Malefactors 
glory  in  it,  Treason  made  a  Trifle,  and  the  Abettors 
caressed,  Magistrates  grow  careless,  and  the  Offenders 
impudent."3 

At  the  time  these  words  were  spoken,  several  of   the 

1  Perry,  Papers  relating  to  the  History  of  the  Church  in  Maryland, 
p.  57  et  seq. 

2  Hawks,  "  Contributions  to  the  Ecclesiastical  History  of  the  United 
States,'1  Vol.  II,  p.  124  et  seq. 

3  L.  H.  J.,  November  29,  1708. 


442          MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

clergy  of  the  established  church  —  paid,  by  a  tax  on  the 
people,  to  preach  righteousness  —  were  leading  such  dis- 
solute lives  that  the  Assembly  made  its  first  attempt,  in 
its  own  way,  to  restrain  their  vices.  A  bill  was  intro- 
duced which  provided  for  the  establishment  of  a  spiritual 
court,  to  be  composed  of  the  governor  and  three  laymen. 
The  court  was  to  have  cognizance  of  all  cases  of  immo- 
rality on  the  part  of  a  clergyman  and  non-residence  in  his 
parish  for  thirty  days  at  any  one  time  ;  and  it  was  to 
have  power  to  deprive  the  offender  of  his  living  and 
suspend  him  from  the  ministry.  The  bill  passed  both 
houses ;  but  the  governor  withheld  his  assent  on  the 
ground  that  he  had  no  instruction  from  the  home  govern- 
ment concerning  the  matter.1  The  movement  to  establish 
the  court,  even  though  it  failed  at  this  time,  was  not 
without  effect.  Some  of  the  better  clergymen  wrote  to 
the  Bishop  of  London  about  it,  described  it  as  "  a  pres- 
byterian  form  of  ministers  and  lay  elders,"  and  repre- 
sented that  the  establishment  of  it  would  raise  an  effectual 
bar  to  the  introduction  of  Episcopacy,  which  they  still 
desired  and  hoped  for. 

Governor  Seymour  died  in  the  year  1709,  and  for  the 
next  five  years  the  province  was  without  a  governor.  Then, 
in  the  year  1714,  Governor  Hart  arrived.  It  was  hoped  by 
some  that  he  had  come  with  power  to  remove  such  of  the 
clergy  as  were  a  scandal  to  religion  ;  but  in  this  they  were 
disappointed.  However,  the  new  governor  manifested  an 
interest  in  the  church  by  causing  the  clergy  to  meet  at 
Annapolis,  in  the  first  year  of  his  administration,  that 
they  might  become  better  acquainted  with  one  another, 
and  that  he  might  ascertain  who  among  them  were  worthy, 
and  who  unworthy.2  To  his  discomfiture,  soon  after  he 
began  to  show  this  attention  to  ecclesiastical  affairs,  sev- 

1  Hawks,  pp.  128-131.  2  perry,  pp.  77-82. 


RELIGION,    THE   CHURCH,    AND   THE   CLERGY        443 

eral  vestries  applied  to  him  to  hear  charges  against  their 
ministers.  Those  made  against  Rev.  Tibbs  of  St.  Paul's 
Parish,  in  Baltimore  County,  were  of  so  serious  a  nature 
that  the  governor  consulted  with  some  of  the  clergy  as  to 
what  should  be  done.  They  advised  that  Tibbs  be  asked 
to  reform  his  manner  of  living  and  reconcile  himself  to 
his  parishioners,  that  if  he  did  not  do  so,  he  and  his  ac- 
cusers should  be  given  a  hearing,  and  that  all  the  proceed- 
ings in  his  case  should  be  transmitted  to  the  Bishop  of 
London  for  determination.  But  the  vestry  thought  this 
would  take  too  long,  and,  as  the  governor,  on  the  further 
advice  of  some  of  the  clergy,  decided  that  he  had  not  the 
ecclesiastical  authority  which  would  warrant  his  summon- 
ing the  offender  before  him  and  the  council  for  a  hearing, 
nothing  of  consequence  was  done  in  this  or  any  other  case. 

Yet  when  the  governor  saw  how  powerless  he  was  to 
serve  the  church  directly,  he  wrote  to  the  Bishop  of 
London  that  many  of  the  clergy  were  leading  notoriously 
scandalous  lives,  and  that  many  of  the  laity  of  the  estab- 
lished church  were,  as  a  consequence,  becoming  Catholic 
or  Protestant  dissenters.  He  said  he  wished  Maryland 
had  a  suffragan  bishop,  but  recommended,  as  second  choice, 
the  appointment  of  two  commissaries,  and  named  Jacob 
Henderson  as  a  fit  person  to  fill  that  office  on  the  western 
shore  and  Christopher  Wilkinson  to  fill  it  on  the  eastern 
shore. 

The  bishop  responded  by  making  the  appointments  just 
as  the  governor  had  recommended.  But,  again,  the  want 
of  both  discretion  and  sincerity  on  the  part  of  the  gov- 
ernor, the  great  difference  in  temperament  between  the 
two  commissaries,  as  well  as  the  mistakes  of  both,  and  the 
abhorrence  of  the  Maryland  gentry  for  episcopal  authority, 
quickly  checked  the  power  and  influence  of  these  two 
representatives  of  the  bishop.     Not  long  after  receiving 


444  MARYLAND   AS    A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

his  commission,  each  commissary  held  a  visitation  of  the 
clergy  within  his  jurisdiction.  Mr.  Wilkinson  proceeded 
with  caution  and  moderation,  for  he  felt  that  his  superior's 
authority  in  Maryland  was  not  yet  well  established.  He 
was  of  the  opinion  that  a  recognition  of  the  commissarial 
authority  by  an  act  of  assembly  was  necessary.  He  was 
anxious  about  the  pay  which  he  was  to  receive  for  dis- 
charging the  duties  of  his  office.1  And,  therefore,  he 
limited  the  work  of  his  visitation  to  moral  suasion  and  the 
making  of  inquiries.  Mr.  Henderson,  on  the  other  hand, 
was  possessed  of  too  much  zeal  to  entertain  doubt  as  to 
his  authority  ;  and  moral  suasion  was,  for  him,  too  mild  a 
remedy  to  be  applied  to  men  in  holy  orders  who  were 
drunken  and  licentious.  He  proceeded  to  make  his  visi- 
tation an  ecclesiastical  court,  and  to  sit  in  judgment  over 
the  culprits.2  He  requested  each  clergyman  to  produce 
his  letters  of  orders  and  his  license  from  the  Bishop  of 
London.  The  notorious  Tibbs  came  to  the  visitation,  but 
did  not  produce  the  said  letters  and  license.  He  was 
excused  until  an  adjourned  meeting,  and  was  also  advised 
of  the  complaint  against  him.  But  he  did  not  appear  at 
the  adjourned  meeting  ;  and  before  anything  had  been 
done  with  him,  Henderson  had  provoked  a  general  ill 
feeling  toward  himself  by  retaining  in  his  possession  the 
letters  of  orders  and  license  belonging  to  a  Rev.  Mr.  Hall. 
Regarding  this  as  an  act  of  usurpation,  Hall  demanded 
the  return  of  his  property.  This  being  refused,  he  ob- 
tained from  the  governor  a  warrant  for  its  delivery. 

The  frailties  of  human  nature  were  then  given  free  play. 
Hart  and  Henderson,  who  had  up  to  this  time  been  warm 
friends,  became  bitter  enemies.  The  clergy  in  general  and 
the  other  commissary  in  particular  were  incensed  at  Mr. 
Henderson's    high-handed    measure.       Many    influential 

i  Perry,  pp.  86,  87,  106-108.  2  Ibid.,  p.  92  et  seq 


RELIGION,    THE   CHURCH,    AND   THE   CLERGY        445 

people,  who  from  the  beginning  had  been  strongly  opposed  to 
the  establishment  of  any  episcopal  authority  in  the  province, 
could  now  more  easily  convince  others  that  it  was  danger- 
ous to  liberty.  Yet  at  the  very  time  when  the  opposition 
to  the  power  of  the  commissaries  was  thus  stirred  up,  a 
bill  for  the  recognition  and  strengthening  of  their  authority 
was  introduced  into  the  Assembly.  The  Bishop  of  London 
had  written  that  he  was  not  in  favor  of  thus  mixing  his 
authority  with  that  of  the  Assembly.  But  since  the  ap- 
pointment of  the  commissaries  the  members  of  the  As- 
sembly had  shown  their  opposition  by  reducing  marriage 
fees  and  by  talk  about  further  decreasing  the  income  to 
some  of  the  clergy  through  a  division  of  parishes,  par- 
ticularly that  of  the  commissary  on  the  eastern  shore. 
Then,  too,  Hart  was  not  a  strong  man.  He  was  prob- 
ably only  too  glad  to  please  Wilkinson,  if  by  so  doing  he 
thought  he  could  annoy  Henderson.  At  the  same  time 
he  was  too  fond  of  popularity  to  sacrifice  it,  through  too 
strong  support  of  an  unpopular  measure,  even  for  the  good 
of  the  church.  Apparently  no  other  preparation  for  the 
success  of  the  bill  was  made  than  to  request  Mr.  Henderson 
not  only  to  stop  proceedings  against  the  offending  clerg}r- 
men,  but  to  reconcile  himself  to  all  his  brethren.  Then, 
when  the  Assembly  was  in  session,  Governor  Hart,  instead 
of  making  himself  responsible  for  the  measure  and  plead- 
ing boldly  and  vigorously  for  its  passage,  called  a  meeting 
of  the  clergy,  asked  them  to  state  what  they  wanted  of  the 
Assembly,  and  so  used  men  in  holy  orders  —  obnoxious 
because  of  the  immorality  of  several  of  their  number  — 
for  a  shield  to  protect  himself  from  such  attacks  as  the 
bill  might  incite  the  lower  house  to  make.1  The  clergy 
asked  that  the  Assembly  should  recognize  the  commissarial 
authority  ;  that  something  be  allowed  for  the  maintenance 

1  Perry,  p.  102  et  seq. 


446          MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

of  a  register ;  that  the  sheriff  should  be  required  to  serve 
citations  ;  and  that  church  wardens  should  be  allowed  their 
expenses  for  attending  visitations.1  A  bill  for  granting 
all  these  requests  passed  the  upper  house.  But  in  the 
lower  house  about  one-third  of  the  members  were  dis- 
senters, and  of  the  other  two-thirds  many  were  of  the 
gentry  and  much  opposed  to  all  forms  of  episcopal  author- 
ity. Then,  too,  the  more  unscrupulous  among  the  clergy 
themselves  worked  in  secret  for  the  defeat  of  the  bill. 
The  opposition  was  successful.  The  bill  was  lost.  Hart 
and  Wilkinson  ascribed  the  loss  to  Henderson,  while 
Henderson  ascribed  the  loss  to  Hart  and  Wilkinson.2 
During  the  remainder  of  Hart's  administration  Hender- 
son could  do  nothing  as  commissary ;  and  the  whole 
proceeding  with  respect  to  the  lost  bill  only  served  to 
beget  a  belief  among  the  people  that  episcopal  authority 
in  Maryland  rested  on  no  well-founded  claim. 

In  the  year  1720  Governor  Hart  was  succeeded  by 
Governor  Charles  Calvert,  and  then  each  of  the  com- 
missaries held  a  few  helpful  visitations  ;  but  soon  the 
death  of  the  Bishop  of  London  made  void  their  com- 
missions. Mr.  Henderson,  in  stating  to  the  new  Bishop  of 
London  the  needs  of  the  church,  wrote,  "  What  I  would 
propose  as  the  greatest  service  that  can  be  done  for 
religion  and  the  ease  of  the  Clergy  is  that  a  Bishop 
should  be  sent  for  this  Province  to  reside  in  it,  and  a 
charge  it  will  be  sufficient  for  any  one  man. r' 3  Mr.  Wilkin- 
son also  urged  that  some  person  be  sent  over  with  episcopal 
or  delegated  authority. 

But  while  these  clergymen  were  asking  for  a  bishop, 
the  lower  house,  under  the  leadership  of  Thomas  Bordley, 
was  preparing  to  pass  a  bill  for  establishing  a  spiritual 
court   to  be   composed   of   laymen.     When   this   became 

i  Perry,  p.  105.  2  Ibid,  pp.  106-112.  3  Ibid.,  p.  138. 


RELIGION,    THE   CHURCH,    AND   THE   CLERGY        447 

known,  the  clergy,  in  a  body,  protested,  saying  that  such 
a  jurisdiction  would  be  inconsistent  with  the  lord  pro- 
prietor's charter,  repugnant  to  the  laws  of  Great  Britain, 
destructive  of  the  constitution  of  the  Church  of  England, 
and  that  they  could  not  submit  to  it  as  it  would  be  al- 
together contrary  to  their  ordination  vow.1  To  this  pro- 
test, the  lower  house  replied,  in  part,  as  follows,  "  It  hath 
appeared  to  us  that  some  clergymen  within  this  province 
have  behaved  themselves  in  a  manner  so  inconsistent  with 
their  character  that  instead  of  being  guides  to  the  people 
and  preventing  their  being  misled  by  Popish  Priests  and 
other  enemies  of  the  Church  of  England,  their  misbehavior 
and  ill  example  have  been  the  most  prevailing  motives  with 
several  weak  people  to  forsake  the  communion  of  the  best 
church  in  the  world  and  with  others  to  look  upon  all  reli- 
gion as  imposture  and  cheat,  and  that  the  irregularities  com- 
plained of  are  presumed  to  be  owing  in  great  measure  to  the 
want  of  some  judicature  to  correct  the  offenders."2  But 
having  made  this  reply,  the  lower  house  turned  from  the 
threat  to  pass  the  court  bill  to  an  attempt  to  starve  the 
clergy  through  reducing  by  one-fourth  their  income  of 
forty  pounds  of  tobacco  per  poll  and  by  the  division  of 
parishes. 

As  these  attempts  to  lessen  the  income  of  the  clergy  were 
being  made,  the  Bishop  of  London  invited  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Colebatch  to  come  to  England  that  he  might  there  receive 
consecration  and  then  return  to  Maryland  as  his  Lordship's 
suffragan.  It  seems  probable  that  the  bishop  expected  to 
obtain  the  royal  authority  for  such  a  consecration  after  the 
arrival  of  Mr.  Colebatch.  But  when  this  plan  for  establish- 
ing episcopal  authority  became  known,  a  writ  of  ne  exeat  was 
issued,  and  the  departure  from  the  province  of  the  prospec- 
tive suffragan  was  thus  prohibited.3     However,  after  the 

i  Perry,  p.  247  et  seq.  2  Ibid.,  p.  248.  8  Ibid.,  p.  269. 


448  MARYLAND    AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

bill  for  reducing  the  forty  per  poll  to  thirty  per  poll  had 
passed  the  Assembly,  the  clergy  resolved  to  send  Hender- 
son to  England  to  represent  their  grievances  and  to  seek 
redress ;  and  he  not  only  obtained  the  redress,  by  caus- 
ing the  lord  proprietor  to  disallow  the  grievous  act,  but 
returned  in  the  year  1730  as  commissary  of  the  whole 
province. 

Yet  the  very  success  of  this  mission  to  England  made 
all  the  more  intense  the  bitter  feeling  which  for  some  time 
had  existed  between  laity  and  clergy,  especially  of  the 
gentry  toward  the  commissary  himself.  "  Some  of  the 
leaders  in  the  warfare  against  the  church,"  says  Hawks, 
"  had  so  spirited  up  the  people  to  resentment  that  threats 
were  openly  made  of  mobbing  the  commissary  ;  but  Jacob 
Henderson  was  not  a  man  to  be  frightened  by  threats  or 
even  by  blows  ;  for  on  one  occasion,  soon  after  his  return, 
he  was  assailed  at  the  house  of  a  gentleman  by  one  of  that 
magnanimous  class  of  heroes  who  are  willing  to  purchase 
a  reputation  for  courage,  at  a  small  risk,  by  bullying  or 
assaulting  a  clergyman,  whose  hands  they  know  are  tied 
by  his  profession  as  a  minister  of  the  religion  of  peace. 
In  this  instance,  however,  the  coward  reckoned  without 
his  host.  He  struck  Mr.  Henderson ;  the  blow  was 
patiently  borne  without  retaliation.  Emboldened  by  a 
forbearance  which  he  could  not  understand,  and  there- 
fore mistook  for  timidity,  he  struck  him  a  second  time, 
whereupon  he  received  such  a  handling  as  taught  him 
thereafter  not  too  hastily  to  take  for  granted  a  deficiency 
of  either  courage  or  strength  in  a  clergyman."  Other 
clergymen,  at  this  time,  received  blows  from  one  who  was 
both  a  member  of  the  lower  house  and  a  justice  of  the 
peace  ;  and  when  the  clergy,  in  a  body,  complained  to 
the  governor  of  this  barbarous  treatment  of  some  of  their 
number,  he  was  so  far  from  being  disposed  to  punish  the 


RELIGION,    THE   CHURCH,    AND   THE   CLERGY        449 

offenders  that  he  himself  threatened  to  kick  the  commis- 
sary.1 

The  lower  house,  under  the  able  leadership  of  Daniel 
Dulany,  had  long  contended  that  the  people  of  Maryland 
were  entitled  to  all  the  laws  and  statutes  of  the  mother 
country  except  such  as  were  excluded  either  by  express 
words  in  the  said  statutes  or  by  the  acts  of  the  Assembly 
of  Maryland.  Reasoning  along  the  same  line,  Commissary 
Henderson  held  that  the  laws  and  usages  of  the  church  in 
the  mother  country  extended,  in  full  force,  to  Maryland. 
But  the  lord  proprietor's  charter  expressly  granted  to  him 
the  "  Patronages  and  Advowsons  of  all  churches."  Then, 
too,  the  lower  house,  in  making  its  contention  for  the  Eng- 
lish laws  and  statutes,  was  seeking  only  such  security  from 
oppression  as  English  documents,  like  Magna  Carta  and  the 
Bill  of  Rights,  alone  could  give  ;  but  when  Mr.  Henderson 
made  a  like  contention  for  the  extension  of  the  laws  of  the 
church,  Daniel  Dulany  and  Thomas  Bordley  told  the  people 
of  the  tyrannical  deeds  of  William  Laud,  Bishop  of  London 
and  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  under  King  Charles  I,  which 
had  driven  some  of  their  forefathers  to  seek  freedom  in  the 
New  World.2 

Nevertheless,  undaunted  in  the  face  of  this  open  hostil- 
ity, Mr.  Henderson  held  visitations  and  deprived  one  of  the 
drunken  clergymen  of  his  living.  But,  thereupon,  some 
of  the  lawyers  questioned  his  authority.  The  Bishop  of 
London  had  obtained  from  King  George  I  a  commission 
which  made  himself  diocesan  of  the  colonies,  and  of  this 
Commissary  Henderson  had  an  exemplified  copy.3  But 
King  George  II  was  now  upon  the  throne,  and  the 
commissary  had  no  copy  of  the  new  king's  commission 
to  the  bishop.     He  applied  for  it ;  but  before  receiving 

1  Perry,  pp.  283,  300 ;  Hawks,  pp.  206,  207.  2  Hawks,  p.  211. 

8  Perry,  pp.  300-308. 
2g 


450  MARYLAND   AS   A    PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

it,  a  dispute  had  arisen  between  the  lord  proprietor  and 
the  bishop.  During  his  visit  to  his  province,  in  the  year 
1732-33,  the  lord  proprietor  had  been  friendly  to  the 
clergy,  and  had  done  much  to  restore  a  better  feeling 
between  clergy  and  laity.  But  while  in  the  province 
and  after  his  return  to  England  he  contended  that  his 
charter  gave  him  the  sole  right  of  appointing,  presenting, 
and  inducting  ministers,  and  that  the  Bishop  of  London 
was,  therefore,  entitled  to  no  jurisdiction  therein.1  The 
bishop  did  not  see  fit  to  press  the  matter.  Commissary 
Henderson  was  left  without  settled  authority.  The 
clergyman  whom  he  had  deprived  of  a  living  was  advised 
to  sue  him  for  damages  or  else  sue  the  sheriff  for  the  forty 
per  poll  in  case  it  was  refused.  Under  these  circumstances 
Mr.  Henderson  thought  it  useless  for  him  to  proceed  against 
the  more  notorious  but  more  wealthy  Tibbs  ;  and  by  the 
year  1734,  realizing  that  he  had  no  real  power,  he  ceased  to 
act  as  commissary.2  From  that  time  until  the  overthrow 
of  the  proprietary  government  there  was  no  episcopal  < 
authority  in  Maryland. 

Thus  did  Charles,  the  fourth  lord  proprietor,  shut  out 
from  his  province  the  disciplinary  church  law  of  the 
mother  country  ;  and  in  the  year  1748,  when  the  lower 
house,  by  a  vote  of  thirty  to  fifteen,  passed  another  bill 
for  disciplining  the  clergy,  the  same  lord  proprietor's  - 
appointees  in  the  upper  house  rejected  it.  Frederick,  the 
fifth  lord  proprietor,  in  the  second  year  of  his  administra- 
tion, reserved  to  himself,  alone,  the  choice  of  ministers, 
not  allowing  even  the  governor  to  exercise  that  right. 
One. year  later  he  instructed  the  governor  to  forbid  the 
clergy,  for  the  future,  to  assemble  themselves  together. 
At  the  same  time,  attempts  to  divide  parishes  were 
resisted ;    hence,  with   the  increase  in  population,  many 

i  Perry,  pp.  313,  331.  »  Hawks,  p.  222. 


RELIGION,    THE   CHURCH,    AND   THE   CLERGY        451 

of  the  ministers  were  well  paid ;  and  the  degenerate 
Frederick  found,  in  his  charter  right  of  patronages  and 
advowsons  of  churches,  an  opportunity  to  give  places  of 
profit  to  his  ignoble  friends.1 

But  no  matter  how  ignoble,  profligate,  or  criminal  a 
minister  was,  after  he  had  once  been  inducted  into  a 
parish,  there  was  no  power  to  remove  him  or  deprive  him 
of  his  living.  He  was  in  for  life  or  until  he  found  some- 
thing that  suited  him  better.  After  being  inducted,  one 
minister,  for  example,  spent  the  most  of  twenty  years  in 
jail  ;  and,  even  while  at  large,  he  is  said  to  have  been  so 
infamously  profligate  that  it  was  a  discredit  to  any  person 
of  character  to  admit  him  to  the  regard  and  notice  of  a 
common  acquaintance.2  Another  minister  —  one  of  those 
who  had  been  within  the  inner  circle  of  Lord  Baltimore's 
friends, —  by  his  arrogance,  impudence,  and  greed,  pro- 
voked the  implacable  resentment  of  several  of  the  leading 
men  of  the  province,  particularly  some  members  of  the 
powerful  Dulany  family,  and  then  carried  a  pistol,  even 
into  his  pulpit,  that  he  might  defy  his  enemies.3 

This  was  more  than  the  people  would  forever  endure. 
In  the  year  1768  both  houses  of  Assembly  passed  another 
bill  for  establishing  a  spiritual  court  to  be  composed  of 
the  governor,  three  clergymen,  and  three  laymen.  Gov- 
ernor Sharpe,  apprehending  that  the  lord  proprietor  might 
dislike  the  bill,  and  yet  be  under  some  difficulty  in  reject- 
ing it,4  obeyed  his  superior's  instruction  and  withheld  his 
assent.  But,  thereupon,  the  Assembly  declared  that  they 
would  push  the  measure  every  session  until  it  became  a 
law.5  Eden  became  governor  one  year  later.  Before  he 
left  England,  the  lord  proprietor  had  stated  that  he  had 

1  Gilraore  Papers.  2  C.  R.,  April  29,  1768. 

8  Gilmore  Papers  ;  Maryland  Gazette,  1768  ;  Sharpe's  Correspondence, 
Vol.  Ill,  p.  432  et  seq.  *  Supra,  p.  226.  5  Perry,  pp.  337,  339. 


452  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

no  objection  to  the  bill ;  and  the  Bishop  of  London,  upon 
being  consulted  in  the  matter,  informed  the  new  governor 
that  he  had  no  commission  of  superintendency  over  the 
clergy  of  America.  One  way  to  a  government  of  the 
clergy  was,  therefore,  at  last  clear. 

In  vain  some  of  the  clergy  at  this  time  addressed  the 
governor  and  drew  up  addresses  to  the  lord  proprietor, 
the  Bishop  of  London,  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and 
the  king  in  the  hope  that  their  request  for  a  bishop  might 
be  granted.  Governor  Eden  told  those  clergymen  that 
the  livings  of  Maryland  were  donatives  and  that  conse- 
quently there  was  not  only  no  need  of  a  bishop,  but  that  a 
bishop  could  have  no  authority.1  His  reasoning  was  more 
than  questionable,  but  it  so  disheartened  the  hopeful  that 
they  did  not  send  their  addresses  to  England.2 

On  the  other  hand,  the  assembly  bill  for  disciplining 
the  clergy  became  a  law  in  the  year  1771.  It  required 
every  minister  to  take  the  several  oaths  to  the  govern- 
ment within  four  months  after  his  induction  or  appoint- 
ment. It  directed  that  any  minister  who  neglected  to  do 
this,  or  who  made  any  simoniacal  contract,  should  be  dis- 
abled from  holding  his  place,  benefice,  or  church  living. 
It  directed  that  any  minister  who  absented  himself  from 
his  parish  for  thirty  days  together,  or  for  sixty  days  alto- 
gether during  any  one  year,  should  forfeit  £10  sterling. 
Finally,  whenever  the  majority  of  the  vestry  and  church 
wardens  of  any  parish  complained  to  the  governor  that 
their  minister  neglected  to  officiate,  or  that  he  was  lead- 
ing a  notoriously  or  scandalously  immoral  life,  the  gov- 
ernor, with  the  advice  of  the  council,  was  to  appoint  a 
commission  to  be  composed  of  the  governor  himself, —  if 
he  was  of  the  Church  of  England,  and,  if  not,  then  the 
first  member  of  council    who   was,  —  three   ministers   in 

i  C.  R.,  September  15,  1770.  a  Hawks,  p.  256  et  seq. 


RELIGION,    THE   CHURCH,    AND   THE   CLERGY         453 

actual  possession  of  a  Maryland  benefice,  and  three  lay- 
men of  the  Church  of  England  ;  and  this  commission  was 
authorized  to  hear  the  case,  and,  upon  finding  the  minister 
guilty,  to  admonish,  suspend,  or  totally  deprive  him  of 
his  living. 

Not  only  was  the  church  left,  for  so  many  years,  weak 
and  offensive  for  want  m  of  government;  but  the  lack  of 
foresight  in  its  founders,  in  providing  for  the  maintenance 
of  the  clergy,  caused  an  increase  of  violence  in  the  attacks 
that  were  made  upon  it  in  later  years.  When  those  found- 
ers made  *the  forty  per^poll  provision,  they  were  looking 
back  to  the  Mosaic  law  and  seeking  an  approximate  equiv- 
alent for  the  tenth.  Their  prophetic  vision,  however,  failed 
them.  They  did  not  see  that  in  the  future  many  of  the 
parishioners  would  raise  no  tobacco,  that  for  the  good  of 
the  whole  country  such  parishioners  should  be  permitted 
to  pay  in  mone}^,  and,  above  all,  that  without  legislative 
regulation  the  tobacco  trade  would  be  ruined  and  tobacco 
be  of  no  use  to  the  man  in  holy  orders  except  to  smoke  or 
chew.  Furthermore,  the  founders  failed  to  make  provi- 
sion for  changing  the  size  of  the  several  parishes  so  as  to 
insure,  with  the  increase  in  population,  the  payment  of 
equal  regard  to  the  proper  maintenance  of  the  minister 
and  to  the  accommodation  of  the  parishioners. 

When  first  laid  out,  many  of  the  parishes  were  from 
thirty  to  forty  and  some  of  them  even  fifty  miles  long.1 
They  were  sparsely  populated.  Much  poor  tobacco  was 
raised  ;  and  it  seems  to  have  been  quite  usual  for  the 
planter  to  save  the  poorest  for  the  minister.  In  the  year 
1696  the  clergy  complained  that  their  tobacco  sold  for  but 
from  one-fourth  to  one-half  as  much  as  other  tobacco.2 
No  attempt  was  made  to  interfere  with  the  law  for  levying 
the  forty  per  poll  until  about  the  year  1728  ;  and  even  at 

1  Perry,  pp.  190-230.  2  Hawks,  p.  80. 


454  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

that  time  the  income  to  most  of  the  ministers  was  pitifully 
small.  Yet,  for  several  years,  for  want  of  a  law  to  regu- 
late the  tobacco  industry,  it  threatened  to  become  still 
smaller.  The  fees  of  officers  had  been  reduced  about  one- 
fourth  in  the  year  1719  ;  and  in  the  year  1725  the  lower 
house  had  fought  hard  to  reduce  them  one-half.  The 
immorality  of  a  few  of  the  clergy  caused  the  whole  body 
to  be  despised  ;  and  when  the  lower  house  had  proposed 
to  establish  a  lay  jurisdiction  over  them  for  their  better 
behavior,  they  remonstrated.  The  people  were  at  last 
crying  aloud  for  a  law  to  improve  the  tobacco  trade. 
Therefore,  when  the  Assembly,  in  the  year  1728,  passed  a 
bill  for  limiting  the  number  of  tobacco  plants,  there  was 
some  appearance  of  justice,  in  spite  of  the  law  of  1702,  in 
inserting  a  clause  for  making  the  forty  per  poll  payable  at 
one-fourth  reduction,  or  in  money  at  the  rate  of  ten  shill- 
ings per  hundred  weight  of  tobacco.  But  suspicion  as  to 
the  real  motive  was  strengthened  when  the  same  Assembly 
passed  other  bills  for  dividing  several  of  the  parishes  ;  and 
it  was  on  this  occasion  that  the  Rev.  Mr.  Henderson 
was  sent  to  England.  He  procured  the  lord  proprietor's 
disallowance  of  all  these  bills,  and  also  caused  the  pro- 
prietor to  order  the  governor  not  to  pass  any  bill,  for  the 
future,  which  would  be  an  infringement  of  the  church  act 
of  1702,  or  which  would  be  a  violation  of  English  law  and 
custom  by  dividing  a  parish  during  the  lifetime  of  an  in- 
cumbent without  the  incumbent's  consent.1 

Nevertheless,  the  year  in  which  this  order  was  received, 
both  houses  passed  another  bill  for  limiting  the  number 
of  tobacco  plants.  It  required  the  payment  of  only  thirty 
pounds  of  tobacco  per  poll,  provided  that  in  place  of  the 
other  ten  pounds  grain  was  paid  at  the  rate  of  one  bushel 
of  wheat  for  forty-two  pounds  of  tobacco,  one  bushel  of 

I  Perry,  pp.  258,  262,  264,  267,  269,  270,  280,  282. 


RELIGION,    THE   CHURCH,    AND   THE   CLERGY        455 

corn  or  oats  for  twenty  pounds  of  tobacco,  or  one  bushel 
of  barley  for  twenty-four  pounds  of  tobacco.1  This  bill 
was  signed  by  the  governor  and  received  the  lord  proprie- 
tor's assent,  much  to  the  discomfiture  of  the  clergy;  but 
as  it  did  not  successfully  regulate  the  tobacco  industry,  it 
remained  a  law  for  only  two  years. 

After  its  expiration,  Maryland  planters  were  for  several 
years  subject  to  no  law  with  respect  to  either  the  quantity 
or  the  quality  of  the  tobacco  which  they  put  upon  the 
market,  while  the  Virginia  planters  became  subject  to  a 
law  which  much  improved  the  quality  of  the  tobacco  in 
that  province.  The  result  was  that  the  Maryland  tobacco 
trade  reached  the  brink  of  ruin,  and  that  the  clergy 
became  quite  willing  to  have  a  law  like  that  of  Virginia, 
even  though  it  gave  them  only  thirty  pounds  of  inspected 
tobacco  per  poll  from  the  planters  and  3s.  9c?.  per  poll 
from  those  who  made  no  tobacco.  This  law,  the  famous 
inspection  law,  was  made  in  the  year  1747.  It  was  not 
long  before  it  caused  the  price  of  tobacco  to  rise  to  such 
an  extent  that  those  who  were  permitted  to  pay  in  money 
—  the  wheat  growers,  iron  workers,  and  others,  who  con- 
tributed far  more  to  the  welfare  of  humanity  than  did  the 
tobacco  planters  —  were  taxed  less  in  real  value  than  were 
those  who  were  obliged  to  pay  in  tobacco. 

Yet,  after  this  good  law  had  been  in  force  five  years,  one 
of  the  ungrateful  clergymen,  in  a  letter  to  the  Bishop  of 
London,  acknowledged  that  the  price  of  tobacco  had  ad- 
vanced since  its  enactment,  but,  instead  of  being  thankful 
for  this,  he  characterized  as  "  lazy  "  those  who  were  per- 
mitted to  pay  in  money  ;  he  grumbled  and  said  that  the 
law  had  already  "picked  his  pocket"  of  X200,  and  he 
asked  that  something  be  done  to  have  it  annulled.2 

The  law  was  continued,  however,  until  the  year  1770. 

i  Perry,  p.  284  et  seq.  2  Ibid.,  pp.  326,  328. 


456  MARYLAND   AS    A    PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

By  causing  the  price  of  tobacco  to  advance,  it  also  caused 
the  number  of  taxable  persons  in  each  of  the  several  parishes 
to  increase  the  more  rapidly.  Before  it  had  been  in  opera- 
tion thirty  years  the  clergy  of  Maryland  were  better  paid 
than  those  in  any  other  colony  in  America.  In  the  year 
1767  there  were  only  two  parishes  in  which  the  clergy- 
man's annual  income  from  the  poll  tax  was  less  than  XI 00 
sterling,  and  only  eight  in  which  it  was  less  than  £150 
sterling  ;  in  sixteen  it  was  more  than  £200  sterling,  and 
in  All  Saints  Parish  in  Frederick  County  it  was  already 
more  than  ,£450  sterling,  and  increasing  at  the  rate  of  at 
least  £50  a  year.1  So  lucrative  had  many  of  the  benefices 
become  that  it  was  not  uncommon  for  a  clergyman,  after 
officiating  only  a  few  years,  to  resign  in  favor  of  another, 
upon  an  express  understanding  that  when  the  latter  was 
inducted,  he  should  pay  annually  a  part  of  his  stipend  to 
the  former,  who  thereupon  quietly  sat  down  in  idleness.2 
Worst  of  all,  the  renegade  Bennet  Allen,  the  most 
brazen  faced  among  them,  after  fighting  hard  that  he 
might  enjoy  the  possession  of  two  benefices  at  the  same 
time,  finally  got  possession  of  the  most  lucrative  one 
in  the  whole  province.  For  a  few  years  Thomas  Bacon, 
a  most  highly  esteemed,  learned,  and  worthy  gentleman, 
was  the  minister  in  All  Saints  Parish.  As  he,  in  the  year 
1768,  was  about  to  be  laid  in  his  grave,  Allen  wrote  to 
Governor  Sharpe  the  following :  "  I  have  this  moment 
received  intelligence  that  Mr.  Bacon  was  dangerously 
ill,  and  the  person  who  brought  the  news  expects  he  is 
dead  by  this  time.  As  my  Lord  Baltimore  designed  this 
Parish  for  me,  and  intended  for  that  purpose  negativing 
the  Division  had  it  been  proposed  by  the  Assembly,  I 
humbly  request  from  your  Excellency  my  succeeding  to 
that  living  upon  confirmation  of  the  news ;   and  if  it  is 

i  Perry,  p.  336  ;  Eddis,  p.  49.  '         a  Hawks,  p.  282. 


RELIGION,    THE   CHURCH,    AND   THE   CLERGY        457 

done  immediately,  the  Division  (should  it  be  agitated) 
would  not  affect  my  incumbency.  Your  Excellency's 
compliance  with  my  request  (which  at  all  events  will 
give  me  a  certain  provision)  will  greatly  add  to  the 
many  obligations  I  am  already  under  to  you,  etc. 

"Bennet  Allen."1 

So,  such  a  man  was  inducted  into  a  parish  where  he 
received  from  .£550  to  £1000  sterling  per  annum  ;  and 
the  most  of  this  money  was  paid  by  the  industrious 
Palatines,  —  a  people  who,  driven  from  their  European 
home  because  of  their  religious  faith,  had,  in  their  new 
home,  made  the  forest  give  way  to  the  wheat  field,  had 
opened  iron  mines,  and  had  founded  a  church  of  their 
own.  The  Dulanys  —  one  of  whom  Allen  later  killed 
in  a  duel 2  —  also  had  large  vested  interests  in  this 
parish.  No  wonder  that  '  fear  caused  the  preacher  to 
carry  a  pistol  with  him  into  his  pulpit. 

The  inspection  law  was  not  revived  in  the  year  1770, 
because  when  the  lower  house  insisted  upon  a  reduction 
of  fees,  the  upper  house  would  not  permit  it.  When  the 
law  had  expired,  the  governor  issued  his  proclamation  for 
continuing  the  old  table  of  fees  ;  and  what  a  tumultuous 
uprising  this  occasioned,  has  been  seen.3  No  wonder,  then, 
that  upon  the  expiration  of  this  law,  the  people  also  rose 
up  in  war  against  the  clergy ;  for  by  the  law  of  1702  they 
were  again  entitled  to  the  forty  pounds  of  tobacco  per  poll. 
The  act  for  disciplining  the  clergy  had  not  yet  been  passed. 
Only  the  month  before  the  inspection  law  expired,  some 
of  the  clergy  had  made  the  people  angry  by  asking  the 
governor  to  join  with  them  in  the  request  for  a  bishop. 
For  the  past  three  or  four  years  many  parishioners  had 
been    vehemently    contending   that,    as    the    church   was 

1  Gilmore  Papers.     2  Ibid.  ;  Dulany  Papers.     8  Supra,  pp.  192,  399. 


458  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

supported  at  their  expense,  the  vestry,  as  their  repre- 
sentatives, was  entitled  to  the  right  of  appointing  the 
minister;  and  in  support  of  their  contention  they  stated 
that  in  many  of  the  treatises  on  the  canon  law  and  in 
Coke's  Littleton  it  was  asserted  that  the  right  of  pres- 
entation was  first  gained  by  such  as  were  founders, 
benefactors,  or  maintainers  of  the  church.1  Still  the 
charter  gave  this  right  to  the  lord  proprietor.  In  this 
state  of  affairs  it  was  intolerable  to  think  of  increasing 
by  one-third  the  incomes  of  worthless  clergymen.  Their 
incomes  under  the  inspection  act  were  thought  to  have 
been  far  too  large  to  be  squandered  in  idle  living. 

In  the  midst  of  the  strife,  some  lawyers  thought  they 
discovered  that  the  law  of  1702  was  null  and  void.  They 
said  :  "  The  Province  of  Maryland  was  in  the  hands  of 
the  Crown  in  the  reigns  of  King  William  and  Queen 
Anne.  A  General  Assembly  in  the  time  of  William  had 
been  legally  chosen  by  the  King's  writs  of  election  and 
summons.  King  William  died  on  the  eighth  of  March 
1701-02.  *  Without  any  fresh  writ  of  election  and  sum- 
mons the  Assembly  afterward  met,  and  on  the  sixteenth 
of  March  1701-02  made  and  enacted  the  contested  law, 
commonly  called  the  forty  per  poll  law."2  Many  people 
then  refused  to  pay  their  minister  anything.  Lawsuits 
were  the  consequence  ;  and  usually  the  decision  was  in 
favor  of  the  taxpayer.3  But  appeals  were  made  ;  and 
the  case  was  not  yet  fully  decided  when,  in  the  year  1773, 
the  Assembly  succeeded  in  passing  an  act  for  paying  the 
clergy  either  thirty  pounds  of  inspected  tobacco  or  four 
shillings  per  poll.  This  act,  however,  was  to  have  no 
influence  in  determining  the  validity  of  the  law  of  1702. 

1  C.  R.,  April  29,  1768. 

2  Maryland  Gazette,  September  10,  1772. 

3  Ibid.,  March  4,  1773  ;  Hawks,  p.  279. 


RELIGION,    THE   CHURCH,    AND   THE   CLERGY        459 

The  time  had  at  last  come  when  the  people  and  the 
Assembly  were  determined  either  to  correct  the  abuses 
of  the  clergy  or  else  overthrow  the  church  as  established. 
In  the  year  1768  the  vestry  of  Coventry  Parish  shut 
their  newly  inducted  minister  out  of  the  church,  threat- 
ened to  tear  down  the  house  in  which  any  one  should 
allow  him  to  preach,  and  began  suit  to  determine  whether 
they  or  the  lord  proprietor  had  the  right  to  appoint  their 
minister.  In  the  year  1771  the  disciplinary  act  was 
passed.  Should  the  right  of  the  vestry  to  appoint  the 
minister  have  been  denied,  or  should  the  disciplinary  act 
have  proved  to  be  ineffectual,  there  would  have  been  all 
the  stronger  probability  that  the  church  was  not  long  to 
remain  established  by  law. 

The  lord  proprietor  resisted  with  all  his  might  the 
extension  of  the  laws  of  both  church  and  state  in  the 
mother  country  to  his  province.  He  was  unsuccessful  in 
resisting  the  extension  of  those  of  the  state,  and  this 
strengthened  the  political  power  of  the  people.  He  was 
more  successful  in  resisting  the  extension  of  those  of  the 
church,  because  the  people  themselves  were  afraid  of 
episcopal  authority.  But  this  very  success  made  him. 
responsible  for  the  abuses  of  the  clergy  and  thereby  added 
strength  to  the  growing  opposition  which  the  people  gave 
him.  Finally,  the  vices  of  the  clergy  not  only  left  the 
church  without  a  restraining  influence  over  the  legislative 
Assembly,  but,  by  being  conducive  to  the  growth  of  scep- 
ticism and  dissenting  sects,  they  indirectly  occasioned  the 
development  of  a  broader,  more  liberal,  and  more  pro- 
gressive spirit  among  the  people. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
Relations  with  the  Home  Government 

Until  the  close  of  the  last  intercolonial  war,  in  the  year 
1T63,  the  lord  proprietor  was  kept  between  two  fires :  that 
of  the  home  government  on  the  one  side,  and  that  of  his 
tenants,  the  people,  and  their  representatives  on  the  other. 
But  from  then  until  the  final  overthrow  of  the  proprietary 
government,  the  people  of  Maryland,  in  union  with  those 
of  the  other  colonies,  were  engaged  in  the  great  struggle 
with  the  mother  country. 

The  lord  proprietor,  no  less  than  the  most  lowly  of  his 
tenants,  was  a  subject  of  the  king ;  and  this  fact  weakened 
his  power  to  inspire  with  awe  or  with  the  spirit  of  sub- 
mission. It  was  necessary  for  him  to  permit  those  under 
his  government  to  enjoy  their  rights  as  British  subjects  if 
he  would  prevent  them  from  carrying  their  grievances 
against  him  to  the  crown.  At  the  same  time  it  was  neces- 
sary that  he  should  govern  with  a  sufficiently  strong  hand 
to  preserve  order,  prevent  anarchy,  or  suppress  rebellion,  if 
he  would  not  have  the  crown  declare  that  he  had  forfeited 
his  right  to  the  government.  If  he  would  avoid  the  fatal 
rock,  it  was  necessary  that  he  should  keep  his  government 
adjusted  to  the  views  of  the  party  in  power  in  the  mother 
country;  that  he  should  make  changes  so  as  to  meet  every 
important  constitutional  change  in  the  mother  country  ; 
that  he  should  at  least  be  most  cautious  about  opposing  any 
policy  of  the  home  government,  and,  especially,  that  he 

400 


RELATIONS    WITH   THE   HOME   GOVERNMENT         461 

should  show  the  highest  regard  to  every  instruction  or 
request  from  that  government. 

The  first  lord  proprietor  was  both  politic  and  diplomatic. 
He  had  the  support  of  the  home  authorities  in  his  contest 
with  the  Jesuit  priests.  During  the  progress  of  the  war 
between  the  king  and  Parliament  he  made  changes  in  his 
government  so  as  to  make  it  agreeable  to  the  victors,  and  at 
the  same  time  preserve  harmony  between  his  Catholic  and 
Protestant  tenants.  Again,  when  Claiborne  and  the  Puri- 
tan commissioners  had  got  possession  of  his  government, 
he  won  the  favor  of  Cromwell  and  thereby  caused  it  to  be 
restored. 

But  the  second  lord  proprietor  did  not  inherit  his  father's 
diplomatic  tact ;  and  then,  too,  in  his  administration,  the 
home  government,  seeking  to  enrich  England  through  her 
colonial  trade,  gave  more  and  more  attention  to  the  govern- 
ment of  the  colonies.  Upon  complaint  being  made  about 
the  neglect  of  Protestantism,  the  home  government  in- 
structed the  lord  proprietor  to  have  Protestant  ministers 
appointed;  but  he,  relying  solely  on  the  words  of  the 
charter  that  were  in  his  favor,  acted  as  if  England  had  no 
right  to  interfere.  When  the  home  government  asked  him 
what  were  the  obstructions  to  the  trade  of  his  province,  and 
what  improvements  he  would  suggest,  he  replied,  saying, 
**  The  greatest  obstruction  of  the  trade  of  this  Province  is 
what  the  late  Acts  of  Parliament  made  in  England  for 
Navigation  have  occasioned,  the  removing  of  which  is  not 
to  be  expected  until  it  be  for  the  interest  of  England  to 
remove  them." 1 

As  England  saw  fit  to  treat  her  colonies  as  her  posses- 
sions rather  than  as  part  of  herself,  the  acts  of  trade  were 
not  repealed.  On  the  contrary,  they  were  extended  and 
more  and  more  rigidly  enforced.  Under  those  acts  officers 
1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1667  to  1687-88,  p.  268  et  seq. 


462  MARYLAND   AS  A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

were  appointed  by  the  crown  to  administer  them  and  collect 
such  duties  as  might  be  imposed.  Some  of  his  Majesty's 
collectors  of  customs  were  base  and  insolent  men.  Under 
these  circumstances,  the  lord  proprietor  became  too  irritated 
to  act  discreetly.  He  quarrelled  with  Rousby,  one  of  those 
collectors,  and  then  sought  his  removal  and  the  appoint- 
ment of  two  of  his  own  relatives  —  who  were  collecting 
the  duties  imposed  by  the  Maryland  Assembly  —  to  collect 
for  the  king.  In  several  letters  to  the  authorities  at  home, 
he  denounced  Rousby  in  the  strongest  terms  at  his  com- 
mand. He  called  him  an  insolent,  dissolute,  and  profane 
rogue,  a  knave,  a  devil,  a  traitor.  He  charged  him  with 
fraud  and  extortion.  He  declared  that  because  of  the  trouble 
shipmasters  had  with  him,  Maryland  was  losing  much  of 
her  trade. x  Rousby,  on  his  side,  however,  represented  that 
the  lord  proprietor  had  greatly  hindered  him  in  the  dis- 
charge of  his  duties ; 2  and  instead  of  all  the  shipmasters 
being  incensed  against  Rousby,  Richard  Colvill,  one  of 
them,  reported  in  London  that  the  officers  of  Maryland  had 
imposed  an  oath  on  the  people  whereby  they  were  required 
to  swear  fidelity  to  the  lord  proprietor  against  all  princes 
whatsoever,  but  particularly  against  the  king  of  England. 

After  the  case  had  been  brought  before  the  commissioners 
of  the  customs,  the  treasury  board,  and  the  privy  council, 
instead  of  removing  Rousby,  a  judgment  to  the  amount  of 
£2500  was  passed  against  the  lord  proprietor,  and  besides 
demanding  of  him  this  amount,  he  was  severely  censured 
and  commanded  to  take  care  in  the  future  that  all  the 
laws  of  England  relating  to  the  colonial  trade  were  duly 
observed,  and  that  encouragement  and  assistance  were 
given  to  the  customs   officers.3     To   make   matters   still 

i  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1667  to  1687-88,  pp.  274-276,  279. 

2  Ibid.,  pp.  288  et  seq.,  292  et  seq. 

8  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1667  to  1687-88,  p.  333  et  seq. 


RELATIONS   WITH   THE   HOME   GOVERNMENT         463 

worse,  only  three  years  after  the  above  judgment  had  been 
pronounced,  Rousby  was  stabbed  to  the  heart  in  a  quarrel 
with  George  Talbot,  a  relative  of  the  lord  proprietor,  and 
the  chief  of  his  council. 

Only  a  short  time  after  the  murder  had  been  committed, 
Nehemiah  Blackiston,  another  collector  of  his  Majesty's 
customs,  wrote  a  long  letter  to  the  commissioners  of  cus- 
toms, in  which  he  first  stated  that  Talbot's  friends  and 
adherents  had  procured  his  escape  from  prison  in  Virginia, 
and  had  got  him  safely  into  Maryland,  where  he  was  liv- 
ing in  his  own  house  with  little  fear  of  being  brought  to 
trial.  Then  he  proceeded  to  tell  how,  in  his  own  case, 
the  members  of  the  council  were  so  far  from  assisting  him 
in  his  Majesty's  service  that  they  had  disowned  his  com- 
mission, torn  and  burned  his  certificates  to  shipmasters, 
appointed  others  to  collect  his  Majesty's  customs,  and 
threatened  him  with  banishment  for  refusing  to  submit  to  the 
will  of  their  appointees.  He  declared  he  was  confident  that 
several  thousand  pounds  sterling  had  been  lost  to  his  Majesty 
through  the  obstructions  which  the  lord  proprietor's  officers 
had  put  in  the  way  of  collecting  the  customs.1 

The  obstinacy  of  the  lord  proprietor  and  his  officers 
could  be  justified  on  no  other  ground  than  that  his  charter 
had  been  infringed.  King  James  II  therefore  instituted 
a  quo  tvarranto  proceeding  to  annul  that  document.  This 
had  not  been  accomplished  when  he  was  driven  from  the 
throne  and  succeeded  by  King  William  and  Queen  Mary. 
The  lord  proprietor  was  ordered  to  have  the  new  Protes- 
tant king  and  queen  proclaimed  in  his  province.  He 
despatched  a  messenger  to  carry  the  order  to  his  Catholic 
council ;  but  that  messenger  died  on  the  way,  and  the 
order    was    not    executed.2      Thereupon,   the    Protestant 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1667  to  1687-88,  pp.  436-439. 
3  Ibid.,  1687-88  to  1693,  pp.  113,  114. 


V 


464  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY  PROVINCE 

people  of  his  province  rose  up,  took  possession  of  the 
government,  and  asked  the  new  monarchs  to  establish  a 
royal  government  over  them.  This  was  done ;  and  the 
people  and  their  representatives  received  a  large  accession 
of  rights  and  powers. 

After  twenty-three  years  of  royal  government,  the  lord 
proprietor  was  restored  not  to  such  an  absolute  govern- 
ment as  had  existed  previous  to  the  year  1689,  but  to  the 
more  popular  system  which  had  been  instituted  and  de- 
veloped by  permission  of  the  home  government  —  in  which 
Parliament,  if  not  the  House  of  Commons  alone,  by  .the 
English  Revolution  of  1688,  had  become  the  real  sovereign. 
Subsequent  to  1715  appointment  of  a  governor  by  the 
proprietor  had  to  be  approved  by  the  home  government. 
Furthermore,  the  crown  instructed  that  governor  in  long 
detail  with  respect  to  the  execution  of  the  acts  of  trade, 
and  he  was  put  under  bonds  and  oath  to  observe  the  same. 

The  relations  between  the  people  and  the  lord  proprietor, 
subsequent  to  his  restoration,  affect  the  relations  with  the 
home  government  mainly  through  their  bearing  on  the 
attempts  of  the  lower  house  to  appoint  an  agent  to  repre- 
sent the  people's  grievances  to  the  crown.  The  first  re- 
quest for  the  appointment  of  an  agent  came  from  the  home 
government  not  long  after  the  royal  government  had  been 
established ;  but  the  lower  house  was  unwilling  to  bear  the 
expense  until  there  was  some  pressing  need.  In  the  year 
1695,  while  England  was  asking  assistance  for  the  defence 
of  New  York,  some  members  of  the  lower  house  were  of  the 
opinion  that  if  an  agent  were  appointed  to  make  known 
the  danger  that  was  threatening  Maryland,  she  would  not 
be  asked  to  give  to  New  York.1  Yet  no  agent  was  at  that 
time  appointed.  But  seven  years  later  the  home  govern- 
ment not  only  asked  further  aid  for  New  York,  but  also 

i  L.  H.  J.,  May  13,  15,  17,  October  8,  10,  17,  18,  1695. 


DELATIONS    WITH   THE   HOME   GOVERNMENT         465 

more  urgently  than  ever  repeated  its  request  for  the 
establishment  of  an  agency.  It  complained  that  on  many 
occasions  business  touching  Maryland  could  not  be  done 
without  some  charge,  and  that  for  want  of  an  agent  great 
and  increasing  inconveniences  were  arising  through  delay 
of  reports  and  the  like.1  It  so  happened  that  at  this  time 
Nathaniel  Blaokiston,  who  for  two  years  had  been  popular 
as  governor,  was,  on  account  of  ill  health,  about  to  retire 
from  that  office  and  return  to  England.  Before  departing 
he  offered  to  serve  the  province  as  its  agent  for  one  year 
without  any  charge,  and  for  as  long  thereafter  as  the 
Assembly  should  see  fit  to  employ  him  at  X120  sterling 
per  annum.  As  the  lower  house  had  just  before  reluc- 
tantly voted  to  give  <£300  more  to  New  York,  and  at  the 
same  time  expressed  a  desire  that  Maryland's  own  need  of 
defence  should  be  presented  to  the  king,  Blackiston's  offer 
was  readily  accepted.2 

But  the  members  of  the  lower  house  were  too  much 
mistaken,  too  selfish,  and  too  unjust  to  make  it  possible 
for  an  agent  to  give  them  satisfaction.  There  had  been 
good  reason  why  Maryland  should  contribute  toward  the 
defence  of  New  York ;  for  Indian  affairs  in  that  province 
were  of  prime  importance,  whereas  in  Maryland  there  was 
little  danger  from  the  Indians,  provided  they  were  dis- 
creetly managed  in  New  York.  The  only  other  matters  of 
much  importance  which  the  newly  appointed  agent  was 
asked  to  attend  to  were  those  relating  to  differences  be- 
tween the  proprietor  and  the  people,  and  in  these,  also, 
the  people  were  too  much  prejudiced  against  the  proprie- 
tor to  stop  with  asking  simple  justice. 

The  consequence  was  that  Blackiston  did  not  accomplish 
enough  in  behalf  of  the  province  to  keep  the  lower  house 
willing   to   continue   his   salary.     After  a   few  years  the 

i  L.  H.  J.,  March  25,  1702.  2  Ibid,  March  24,  25,  1702. 

2h 


466  MARYLAND    AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

province  was  again  without  an  agent.  The  board  of 
trade  urged  that  the  agency  be  made  permanent.  But 
nothing  was  done  until  the  year  1713,  when  it  appeared 
that  there  had  been  a  failure  to  present  the  crown  with  an 
address  from  the  Assembly  concerning  the  claim  of  Law- 
rence to  the  license  money  from  ordinaries  ;  and  as  another 
request  that  the  claim  be  paid  came  from  the  crown  that 
year,  the  lower  house  was  ready  to  employ  Blackiston 
again  in  order  that  he  might  show  why  Lawrence  was  not 
entitled  to  the  money  in  question.1  This  time  he  seems 
to  have  been  paid  his  salary  for  eight  years.  But  as  he 
won  no  important  case  for  the  province  during  those  years, 
the  lower  house,  in  the  year  1721,  asked  that  he  be  dis- 
charged on  the  ground  that  he  had  been  of  too  little  ser- 
vice for  the  expense,  because  the  lord  proprietor  was  more 
easy  of  access  than  the  crown,  and  because  no  other  pro- 
prietary province  employed  an  agent,2  It  was  of  no  use 
that  the  upper  house  zealously  urged  the  continuance  of 
his  salary  principally  on  the  ground  that  the  lord  proprietor 
might  need  assistance  in  making  representations  to  the 
court  or  to  Parliament.  The  agency  was  discontinued. 
Thus  far  the  agency  was  distinctly  an  organ  of  the  royal 
^  government.  The  board  of  trade  had  desired  that  it 
should  be  made  permanent  in  order  to  facilitate  business. 
But  the  lower  house  had  been  unwilling  to  incur  the  expense 
except  when  the  people  had  a  particular  grievance  against 
the  crown ;  and  the  governor  and  the  upper  house,  on 
behalf  of  the  board  of  trade,  accepted  the  best  terms  they 
could  get  from  the  lower  house.  The  idea  of  representing 
grievances  through  an  agent  survived  the  restoration  of  the 
proprietary  government ;  but  from  that  time  the  grievances 
were  not  against  the  crown,  but  against  the  lord  proprietor, 

1  Supra,  p.  355  ;  U.  H.  J.,  October  29,  1713. 

2  L.  H.  J.,  August  4  and  5,  1721. 


RELATIONS   WITH   THE   HOME  GOVERNMENT         467 

and  were  to  be  represented  to  the  crown  in  the  nature  of 
an  appeal.  Wherefore,  as  both  the  governor  and  the  upper 
house  were  the  representatives  of  the  lord  proprietor,  who 
was  himself  in  England  to  look  after  his  own  interests, 
the  members  of  the  lower  house  contended  that  they 
alone,  as  the  only  representatives  of  the  people,  should  be 
permitted  to  appoint  and  instruct  an  agent  to  be  main- 
tained by  a  tax  on  their  constituents.  The  lord  proprietor 
and  his  representatives  refused  to  allow  the  appointment 
of  such  an  agent,  and  the  effect  of  the  refusal  was  not 
unlike  that  which  comes  from  denying  the  right  of  free 
speech. 

It  was  in  the  year  1725,  while  the  upper  house  was  pre- 
senting its  petition  to  the  lord  proprietor  against  the  act 
for  the  reduction  of  officers'  fees  and  in  the  midst  of  the 
controversy  over  English  statutes,  that  the  lower  house 
passed  its  first  agency  bill.  The  upper  house  rejected  it 
as  a  most  unreasonable  measure.  Nevertheless,  until  the 
year  1774,  the  lower  house  continued  to  pass  it  at  every 
session  in  which  there  was  much  disagreement  between  the 
two  houses,  and  on  the  most  critical  occasions  this  very 
question  was  presented  to  the  crown  either  through  an 
address  from  the  lower  house  or  through  an  agent  sup- 
ported for  a  time  by  subscription. 

In  the  year  1739  the  lower  house  was  loud  in  its  clamor 
that  the  twelvepence  tobacco  duty,  and  the  fourteen-pence 
tonnage  duty  were  being  collected  without  law. 1  Among 
other  grievances  then  existing  were  the  establishment  of 
fees  by  proclamation,  the  vacating  of  grants  alleged  to 
contain  surplus  land,  and  the  demand  of  alienation  fines 
on  lands  devised.  The  governor  was  asked  to  redress 
these  grievances.  But  as  his  reply  gave  no  satisfaction, 
the  upper  house  was  presented  with  a  bill  for  imposing  a 

1  Supra,  pp.  91,  346. 


468  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

duty  on  tobacco  to  pay  an  agent  who  was  to  be  appointed 
and  instructed  by  a  committee  —  designated  as  trustees  — 
named  by  the  lower  house. 

Upon  rejecting  this  bill,  the  members  of  the  upper  house 
showed  the  height  of  their  resentment  in  a  message  con- 
taining the  following :  "  Although  a  prettier  scheme  for 
power  and  profit  in  our  little  world  of  politics  could  hardly 
be  thought  of,  yet  far  be  it  from  us  to  imagine  that  any 
persons,  either  in  or  out  of  your  house,  had  any  share 
in  this  admirable  project  with  a  view  of  being  Trustees. 
Should  this  ingenious  contrivance  take  effect,  the  Trustees 
might  play  the  game  into  each  other's  hands  and  represent 
each  other  in  England.  The  authority  which  they  would 
gain  by  their  Minister's  complaints  in  England  against 
whatever  person  or  thing  they  pleased,  might  very  soon  be- 
come terrible  and  dangerous  to  every  person  they  should  be 
pleased  to  think  and  stigmatize  as  delinquents  and  malig- 
nants  in  this  Province.  And  when,  after  glutting  their 
vanity  with  a  dictatorial  power  and  filling  their  pockets 
with  money  under  pretence  of  necessary  uses  and  purposes, 
they  should  perceive  an  approaching  period  to  their  great- 
ness of  authority  and  gain,  they  might,  by  their  Minister's 
consent,  employ  their  power  and  money  intrusted  with 
them  to  their  own  private  advantage,  and  the  very  great 
prejudice  of  the  Province."  * 

But  some  of  the  members  of  the  lower  house  were 
made  of  the  sterner  stuff,  and  these  reflections  upon  them 
only  called  out  their  power  to  speak  to  the  point  and  to 
act  with  effect.  They  replied,  saying :  "  The  people  of 
Maryland  think  the  Proprietary  takes  money  from  them 
unlawfully.  The  Proprietary  says  he  has  a  right  to  that 
money.  This  matter  must  be  determined  by  his  Majesty, 
who  is  indifferent  to  both.     The  Proprietary  is  at  home 

!U.  H.  J.,  June  5,  1739. 


RELATIONS   WITH   THE   HOME   GOVERNMENT         469 

and  has  this  same  money  to  negotiate  the  affairs  on  his 
part.  The  people  have  no  way  of  negotiating  it  on  their 
part  but  by  employing  fit  persons  in  London  to  act  for 
them  ;  those  persons  must  be  paid  for  their  trouble ;  and 
this  bill  proposes  to  raise  a  fund  for  that  purpose.  The 
Upper  House  tells  us  you  shall  not  have  that  bill  unless 
you  let  the  Governor  and  us,  or  rather  the  Proprietary 
with  whom  we  contest,  have  as  well  the  nomination  of  the 
persons  to  be  made  use  of  on  this  occasion  as  to  determine 
what,  if  anything,  shall  be  paid  them  for  their  services.  .  .  . 
The  possibility  you  mention  of  the  Trustees  betraying  the 
trust  reposed  in  them  will  have  little  weight  with  the 
world,  since  the  like  supposition  may,  with  equal  propriety, 
be  applied  to  all  trusts  of  that  kind ;  unless  you  would 
have  us  believe  your  Honors  to  be  the  only  infallible  per- 
sons in  the  world,  and  so  commit  this  guardianship  you 
speak  of  to  yourselves.  But  how  convenient  that  might 
be  for  the  people  whoever  reads  your  message  may  easily 
judge.  We  cannot  help  thinking  that  the  denying  this 
looks  too  much  like  an  unwillingness  to  have  the  matter 
in  dispute  brought  to  light.  However,  we  shall  give  you 
no  further  trouble  in  it  than  to  tell  you  the  people  of 
Maryland  have  spirit  enough,  and  we  hope  will  find  means 
without  this  bill,  to  do  themselves  justice."1 

During  the  same  session,  the  lower  house  chose  a  com- 
mittee of  nine  to  appoint  and  instruct  an  agent  and  to 
furnish  him  with  all  necessary  information.2  It  petitioned 
the  lord  proprietor  for  the  redress  which  the  governor  had 
declined  to  give.  It  also  prepared  an  address  to  the  king 
in  which  it  complained  of  the  grievances,  oppressions,  and 
extortions  from  which  the  people  of  Maryland  were  suffer- 
ing under  the  proprietary  government.  "  Our  rights  as 
British  subjects,"  that  body  said  in  this  address,  "are  in- 

1  L.  H.  J.,  June  6,  1739.  2  L.  H.  J.,  June  9,  1739. 


4- 


"K 


470  MARYLAND    AS   A   PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

vaded  by  having  taxes  laid  upon  us  without  any  law,  and 
ordinances  made  by  our  Proprietary  or  his  Governor,  with 
the  advice  of  a  Council  of  his  own  choosing  who  share  in  the 
spoils  of  the  People  by  holding  the  principal  offices  of  the 
Government,  imposed  on  us  as  laws.  ...  To  complete  our 
misfortune,  after  our  repeated  and  fruitless  solicitations  to 
his  Lordship's  Governor  for  relief,  we  endeavored  to  make 
a  law  for  taxing  ourselves  in  order  to  raise  a  fund  whereby 
to  enable  us  to  lay  our  grievances  at  your  Majesty's  feet 
and  implore  your  royal  protection  ;  yet  we  cannot  obtain 
to  that  law  the  assent  of  his  Lordship's  Council,  who,  as 
we  conceive  without  legal  authority,  have  assumed  a  share 
in  our  Legislature  and  a  separate  negative  on  all  laws  pro- 
posed by  the  delegates  in  Assembly  and  holding  their 
places  in  Council,  as  well  as  their  offices  in  Government,  at 
his  Lordship's  will  and  pleasure,  are  absolutely  under  his 
direction  and  serve  only  to  screen  him  or  his  Governor 
from  the  imputation  of  anything  that  is  transacted  hurtful 
or  oppressive  to  the  People.  .  .  .  May  it  therefore  please 
your  Majesty  to  take  our  condition  into  your  consideration 
and  give  instructions  to  the  Proprietary,  his  Governor  and 
Council  here,  that  a  law  may  be  assented  to  for  raising 
money  on  ourselves  whereby  the  House  of  Delegates  for 
the  time  being  may  be  enabled  to  employ  fit  agents  and 
council  to  lay  our  case  in  a  proper  manner  before  your 
Sacred  Majesty."1 

Ferdinand  John  Paris  was  appointed  agent,  and  for  at 
least  five  years  was  paid  with  money  raised  by  subscription. 
He  was  directed  to  present  the  petition  to  the  lord  pro- 
prietor, give  his  Lordship  three  months  to  consider  it,  and, 
if  the  answer  of  the  proprietor  was  wholly  unsatisfactory, 
then  to  lay  the  address  before  the  king. 

But   the   governor   and   council    caused   delay   in   the 

*L.  H.  J.,  June  11,  1739. 


RELATIONS   WITH   THE   HOME   GOVERNMENT        471 

agent's  proceedings  by  refusing  the  agency  committee 
access  to  the  records,  on  the  ground  that  no  persons  could 
act  as  a  committee  of  the  lower  house  except  during  a 
session  of  the  Assembly.  This  incensed  the  lower  house 
still  more.  Furthermore,  by  the  time  the  petition  had  been 
presented  to  the  lord  proprietor,  the  Assembly  had  passed 
a  supply  bill  for  the  purpose  of  aiding  the  mother  country 
in  an  expedition  to  the  West  Indies.  As  this  naturally 
called  for  an  address  to  the  crown,  the  lower  house  pre- 
pared one  and  inserted  in  it  the  following  clause :  "  Al- 
though our  situation  be  remote,  and  we  live  under  a 
proprietary  government,  yet  we  hope  we  are  not  beyond 
the  extensive  influence  of  your  Majesty's  just  and  mild 
administration,  and  think  it  our  greatest  happiness  that 
we  can  have  recourse  to  your  Royal  Person  for  protection 
whenever  we  may  be  put  to  the  necessity  of  imploring 
it."1  The  agent  not  only  saw  that  this  address  was 
properly  presented,  but  he  caused  it  to  be  printed  in  the 
London  Gazette.  And  when  there  was  talk  in  London 
about  the  small  number  of  men  which  Maryland  had  sent 
on  the  expedition,  he  told  how  the  lower  house  had  made 
ample  provision  for  sending  five  hundred,  though  only 
two  hundred  had  gone. 

The  situation  became  thoroughly  alarming  to  the  lord 
proprietor.  In  a  most  conciliatory  answer  to  the  petition 
from  the  lower  house,  he  expressed  the  utmost  willingness 
to  redress  the  people's  grievances.2  He  recalled  the  gov- 
ernor toward  whom  the  lower  house  had  become  offended 
and  put  in  his  place  a  native  of  the  province.  He  ceased 
to  demand  that  grants  containing  surplus  land  be  vacated. 
He  gave  up  his  claim  to  alienation  fines  on  lands  devised.  He 
gave  up  the  attempt  to  obtain  money  from  ferry  licenses.  He 

1  L.  H.  J.,  July  29,  1740  ;  see  also  the  Dulany  Papers. 

2  L.  H.  J.,  May  2,  1744. 


472  MARYLAND   AS    A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

privately  expressed  a  readiness  to  relinquish  his  claim  to 
the  right  of  creating  new  offices.  He  made  a  generous 
offer  with  respect  to  an  equivalent  for  his  quit-rents. 
Furthermore,  it  was  during  this  period  of  threat  to  appeal 
to  the  crown  that  the  lower  house  won  its  series  of  vic- 
tories in  the  contests  with  the  upper  house  over  parliamen- 
tary procedure  and  the  fund  for  arms  and  ammunition.1 
And  the  period  closed  with  the  passage  of  the  bill  for  the 
inspection  of  tobacco  and  the  regulation  of  officers'  fees. 

The  tobacco  duty  and  the  port  duty  continued  to  be 
collected;  and  the  lord  proprietor  directed  the  governor 
to  take  every  possible  measure  necessary  to  prevent  the 
!  establishment  of  an  agency,  on  the  ground  that  it  would 
cause  a  sea  of  trouble  as  well  as  unnecessary  expense. 
But  it  is  probable  that  the  lower  house,  through  fear  of 
defeat,  had  no  desire  to  have  the  crown  decide  the  ques- 
tion relating  to  those  duties  ;2  at  the  same  time,  with  every 
future  rejection  of  the  agency  bill,  the  chief  demagogues 
in  that  house  persuaded  the  more  ignorant  people  that  the 
rejection  was  due  to  the  lord  proprietor's  consciousness 
that  the  imposition  and  collection  of  the  two  duties  in 
question  were  illegal. 

In  this  way  a  state  of  unrest  was  prolonged  until  the 
fourth  intercolonial  war,  when  the  agency  question  again 
came  to  the  front.  The  attempt  to  secure  acceptable  sup- 
ply bills  from  the  lower  house,  by  laying  before  it  words  of 
censure  from  the  home  government,  served  only  to  draw 
from  that  body  the  charge  that  the  Assembly's  transactions 
had  not  been  represented  in  a  true  light.3  In  the  year  1761 
the  lower  house  expressed  to  the  king  its  concern  for  the 
small  amount  of  service  which  Maryland  had  given  in  the 
war,  but  asked  him  not  to  entertain  on  that  account  any 
unfavorable  opinion  of  the  people  of  the  province  until  a 

1  Supra,  pp.  292-303.  2  76iU,  pp.  91,  347.  3  Ibid.,  p.  338. 


RELATIONS    WITH   THE    HOME   GOVERNMENT         473 

full  inquiry  had  been  made  into  the  cause  of  their  not 
giving  more,  and  until  they  should  be -permitted  to  have 
an  agent  who  might  lay  before  him  all  the  grievances 
suffered  under  the  proprietary  government.1  One  year  y\  to- 
later,  also,  when  Governor  Sharpe  endeavored  to  convince 
the  lower  house  that  the  transmission  of  the  Assembly 
journals  to  his  Majesty's  ministers  made  an  agent  unneces- 
sary, he  received  in  reply  the  following :  "  Since  it  seems 
to  be  your  Excellency's  opinion  that  we  have  no  occasion 
for  an  agent  in  the  particular  instance  mentioned  in  your  ^ 
message  for  reasons  which  may  be  extended  to  every 
other  cause  of  complaint,  we  think  it  amounts  to  little  less 
than  a  general  denial  of  the  expediency  of  establishing  a 
person  in  that  character.  This  we  conceive  a  doctrine  of 
so  dangerous  a  tendency  to  the  rights  of  our  constituents 
that  we  must  insist  a  little  on  your  Excellency's  patience 
while  we  explain  and  enforce  the  right  of  the  people  to 
appoint  an  agent  and  the  expediency  of  enforcing  that 
right.  The  great  end  of  employing  an  agent  is  to  represent  V 
and  bring  to  a  final  determination  any  matter  in  dispute 
with  the  Proprietary  by  which  the  people  may  apprehend 
themselves  aggrieved.  For,  if  the  people  think  themselves 
aggrieved,  they  have  a  right  to  apply  to  his  Majesty  for 
redress.  If  they  have  this  right,  it  follows  that  they  must 
have  a  right  of  the  means  of  giving  his  Majesty  the  fullest 
information  upon  the  subject  of  their  appeals.  And  this 
no  doubt  his  Majesty  from  his  known  love  of  justice  and 
tenderness  to  all  his  subjects  would  require.  So  we  con- 
ceive it  is  not  only  an  invasion  of  the  people's  privileges, 
but  derogatory  from  his  Majesty's  dignity  to  withhold 
from  him  the  clearest  lights  we  can  give  him  for  the  infor- 
mation of  his  judgment.  We  hope,  therefore,  we  shall  be 
excused   if  we  say  it  is   too   assuming  in  a  governor  to 

1  L.  H.  J.,  April  22,  1761. 


V, 


474  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

undertake  to  judge  of  the  expediency  of  a  people's  having 
an  agent  to  support  their  interests  when  he  may  be  con- 
sidered the  delegate  of  the  Lord  Proprietary,  against  whom 
they  may  be  desirous  to  exhibit  their  complaints,  and  the 
subordinate  instrument  of  those  very  encroachments  by 
which  they  are  aggrieved." 

The  governor  and  the  upper  house,  however,  stood  firm. 
The  restoration  of  peace  put  an  end  to  the  dispute  over 
the  supply  bills.  The  lord  proprietor  gave  up  his  claim  to 
the  license  money  from  ordinaries.  So  the  need  of  an  agent 
after  the  war  was  no  greater  than  before  it,  except  to  have 
the  crown  decide  the  case  about  paying  the  clerk  of  the 
council.1  As  if  for  this  purpose,  the  lower  house  employed 
Charles  Garth  as  its  agent.2  He  was  paid  for  a  time  with 
money  raised  by  subscription  and  by  a  lottery.  Instead, 
however,  of  being  directed  to  attend  at  once  to  the  clerk's 
case,  he  was  asked  first  to  seek  an  order  from  the  crown 
whereby  the  people  of  Maryland  should  be  permitted  to 
tax  themselves  for  the  maintenance  of  a  permanent 
agency.  And  very  soon  —  before  the  desired  order  had 
been  obtained  —  the  people's  grievances  against  Parlia- 
ment and  the  crown  itself  became  far  greater  than  those 
against  their  all  but  vanquished  lord  proprietor.  The 
agency  question  was  accordingly  lost  sight  of  in  the  up- 
rising of  the  people  against  the  power  to  which  they  had 
hitherto  seemed  so  anxious  to  appeal  for  protection. 

Ceaseless  opposition  to  the  lord  proprietor  and  industrial 
dependence  on  the  mother  country  had  caused  the  people 
of  Maryland,  previous  to  the  fourth  intercolonial  war,  to 
look  upon  the  home  government  as  their  benefactor  and 
protector,  and  to  quite  overlook  the  encroachments  on  their 

1  Supra,  pp.  372,  373. 

2  L.  H.  J.,  December  6,  1766  ;  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  Ill,  pp. 
348,  356,  384. 


RELATIONS    WITH   THE    HOME   GOVERNMENT         475 

independence  that  were  made  under  the  guise  of  the  acts 
of  trade.  In  the  year  1718  the  attorney*  for  his  Majesty's 
surveyor  general  of  the  customs  caused  some  disturbance 
by  prosecuting  suits  in  the  superior  courts  for  the  recovery 
of  trifling  sums.1  Upon  hearing,  in  the  year  1731,  that 
Parliament  was  about  to  pass  an  act  placing  restrictions  on 
manufactures  within  the  colonies,  the  lower  house  showed 
some  uneasiness.  And  on  several  occasions  that  house 
asked  that  Maryland,  in  the  interest  of  her  fishing  indus- 
try, be  given  the  liberty  of  importing  salt  from  all  parts  of 
Europe.2  But  with  these  three  exceptions,  it  does  not 
appear  that,  previous  to  the  fourth  intercolonial  war, 
there  was  any  friction  between  a  proprietary  Assembly  of 
Maryland  and  the  home  government. 

By  that  time,  however,  Maryland  was  prepared  to  pur- 
sue a  different  course  toward  the  mother  country.  With 
the  development  of  her  large  resources  in  the  West,  she 
was  rapidly  becoming  industrially  independent.  Her 
social  force  was  increasing  in  a  geometrical  ratio.  With 
the  many  triumphs  of  the  lower  house  over  the  other 
branches  of  the  legislature,  the  people  had  become  con- 
scious, in  a  high  degree,  of  their  political  power,  and,  con- 
sequently, were  strongly  attached  to  their  constitution. 
The  lower  house  was  determined  to  guard  at  any  cost  the 
rights  which  had  already  been  acquired ;  and  it  was  far 
more  eager  to  further  increase  those  rights,  by  winning 
new  victories  over  the  lord  proprietor,  than  it  was  to 
assist  the  mother  country  to  defeat  the  French  or  the 
other  colonies  to  acquire  new  territory.  If  the  home 
government  had  given  assistance  against  the  lord  proprie- 
tor, the  Maryland  Assembly  might  have  made  liberal 
appropriations  for  carrying  on  the  war.     But,  instead,  the 

i  L.  H.  J.,  May  5,  9,  1718,  April  9,  1720.  j^&^ 

2  Ibid.,  July  17,  1732  ;  U.  H.  J.,  May  4,  1736.  /%?'  of  "**    .-*•> 


476  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

home  government  endeavored  to  bring  about  a  union  of 
the  colonies,  whereby  its  power  over  them  might  be  in- 
creased, —  even  to  taxing  them,  it  was  feared,  —  and  in 
the  dispute  over  supply  bills  it  took  the  part  of  the 
lord  proprietor  rather  than  that  of  the  lower  house. 
Maryland,  as  a  consequence,  showed  her  readiness  to 
oppose  the  plan  of  union,  and  gave  but  little  assist- 
ance toward  carrying  on  the  war.  Out  of  these  con- 
ditions arose  the  struggle  between  her  and  the  mother 
country. 

After  the  Maryland  commissioners  had  returned  from 
the  Congress  at  Albany  and  had  laid  before  the  lower 
house  the  plan  of  union  which  had  been  considered  there, 
the  members  of  that  house  unanimously  disapproved  of  the 
said  plan  on  the  ground  that  it  "  manifestly  tended  to  the 
destruction  of  the  Rights  and  Privileges "  of  the  people 
of  Maryland.  A  few  days  later  they  expressed  their 
disapproval  to  the  governor  in  the  following  words,  "We 
do  not  conceive  that  the  commissioners  were  intended  or 
empowered  to  agree  upon  any  plan  of  a  proposed  union 
of  the  several  colonies  to  be  laid  before  the  parliament 
of  Great  Britain  with  humble  application  for  an  act  by 
virtue  of  which  one  general  government  may  be  formed  in 
America,  and  therefore  do  not  think  ourselves  obliged 
to  take  any  particular  notice  of  their  minutes  of  proceed- 
ings relative  thereto ;  but  as  it  has  been  laid  open  to  our 
view  we  cannot,  consistent  with  our  duty  to  our  constitu- 
ents, forbear  to  observe  in  general  that  the  carrying  the 
said  plan  into  execution  would  absolutely  subvert  that 
happy  form  of  government  which  we  have  a  right  to  by 
our  charter  (the  freedom  of  which  was  doubtless  one  great 
inducement  to  our  ancestors  to  leave  their  friends  and 
native  country  and  venture  their  lives  and  fortunes  among 
a  fierce  and  savage  people  in  a  rough,  uncultivated  world) 


RELATIONS    WITH    THE   HOME   GOVERNMENT         477 

and  destroy  the  Rights,  Liberties,  and  Properties  of  his 
Majesty's  loyal  subjects  of  this  Province."  1 

During  the  progress  of  the  war,  not  only  did  Maryland 
fail  to  comply  with  most  of  the  requisitions  made  upon 
her  by  the  home  government,  but  the  lower  house  struck 
directly  at  the  royal  prerogative  by  inserting  in  its  supply 
bills  a  clause  to  forbid  Maryland  troops  from  serving  out- 
side of  the  province.2  This  course  so  incensed  the  prime 
minister,  Mr.  Pitt,  that  he  avowed  his  intention  of  bring- 
ing the  colonies  into  such  subjection,  when  peace  should 
be  restored,  as  would  enable  the  home  government  to  com- 
pel obedience  to  its  requisitions ;  and  although  Mr.  Pitt 
afterward  became  the  champion  of  American  liberties,  the 
conduct  of  Maryland  during  that  war  was  a  source  of 
much  strength  to  the  members  of  Parliament  who  worked 
for  the  passage  of  the  famous  Stamp  Act. 

While  Parliament  was  considering  this  scheme  for  tax- 
ing the  colonies,  Governor  Sharpe  avoided  meeting  the 
Assembly,  somewhat  to  the  discomfiture  of  the  liberal 
leaders;  and  even  after  the  news  had  been  received,  in 
April,  1765,  that  the  act  was  quite  sure  to  pass,  the  prev- 
alence of  small-pox,  which  had  broken  out  in  the  pre- 
ceding month,  caused  the  meeting  to  be  delayed  several 
months  longer. 

In  the  meantime,  however,  articles  had  appeared  in  the 
Virginia,  New  York,  Boston,  and  Connecticut  Gazettes 
warmly  denouncing  the  act;  and  in  August,  upon  the 
arrival  of  Hood,  the  stamp  distributer  for  Maryland,  his 
effigy  was  whipped,  stood  in  the  pillory,  hanged,  and  burned 
at  several  places  within  the  province.3  On  the  night  of 
the  second  of  September,  a  mob,  numbering  from  three  to 

1  L.  H.  J.,  March  10,  1755. 

2  Supra,  pp.  331,  332. 

3  Maryland  Gazette,  August  29  and  September  5,  1765. 


478  MARYLAND    AS    A    PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

four  hundred,  pulled  down  the  house  which  he  was  pre- 
paring for  the  reception  of  a  cargo  of  goods ;  and  as  the 
governor  had  no  military  force  with  which  to  prevent  such 
proceedings,  Hood's  relatives,  fearing  for  his  safety,  advised 
him  to  depart  out  of  the  province.  He  readily  took  the 
advice,  and  did  not  return  to  discharge  the  duties  of  the 
office  which  he  had  solicited.1 

Having  got  rid  of  Hood  and  the  small-pox,  several  of 
the  leading  lawyers  and  other  prominent  men  signed  a 
petition  to  the  governor  for  convening  the  Assembly.  This 
was  strongly  desired,  in  order  that  the  lower  house  might 
choose  delegates  to  the  congress  at  New  York,  which  was 
to  frame  a  petition  to  the  home  government  for  the  repeal 
of  the  Stamp  Act.  As  the  governor  and  council  feared 
that  a  refusal  to  proceed  at  once  to  convene  the  Assembly 
would  cause  great  disorder,  and  probably  end  in  a  meeting 
of  the  delegates  at  the  call  of  their  constituents,  the  prayer 
of  the  lawyers'  petition  was  granted.2 

The  Assembly  met  September  23,  1765.  From  the  first 
day  of  its  meeting,  the  lower  house  gave  its  undivided 
attention  to  the  Stamp  Act.  After  due  consideration  of 
letters  from  Massachusetts,  William  Murdock,  Edward 
Tilghman,  and  Thomas  Ringgold  were  chosen  delegates 
to  the  congress  at  New  York,  and  among  their  instructions 
was  the  following :  "  You  are  there  to  join  in  a  general 
and  united,  dutiful,  loyal,  and  humble  representation  to 
his  Majesty  and  the  British  Parliament,  of  the  circum- 
stances and  condition  of  the  British  colonies ;  and  to  pray 
relief  from  the  burdens  and  restraints  lately  laid  upon 
their  trade  and  commerce,  and  especially  from  the  taxes 
imposed  by  the  Stamp  Act,  whereby  they  are  deprived,  in 
some  instances,  of  that  invaluable  privilege  of  Englishmen 

i  Sharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  220,  221,  223. 
2  Ibid.,  pp.  230,  231. 


RELATIONS   WITH   THE   HOME   GOVERNMENT         479 

and  British  subjects,  trials  by  juries;  and  to  take  care  that 
such  representation  shall  humbly  and-  decently,  but  ex- 
pressly, contain  an  assertion  of  the  rights  of  the  colonies 
to  be  exempt  from  all  and  every  taxations  and  impositions 
upon  their  persons  and  property  to  which  they  do  not  con- 
sent in  a  legislative  way,  either  by  themselves  or  their 
representatives  freely  chosen  and  appointed." 1 

A  few  days  later  the  same  house,  upon  considering  the 
grievances  that  would  arise  from  an  execution  of  the 
Stamp  Act,  passed  the  following  resolutions  as  declarative 
of  the  constitutional  rights  and  privileges  of  the  freemen 
of  Maryland :  — 

I.  Resolved,  unanimously,  That  the  first  adventurers 
and  settlers  of  this  province  of  Maryland  brought  with 
them  and  transmitted  to  their  posterity,  and  all  other 
his  Majesty's  subjects,  since  inhabiting  in  this  province, 
all  the  liberties,  privileges,  franchises,  and  immunities, 
that  at  any  time  have  been  held,  enjoyed,  and  possessed, 
by  the  people  of  Great  Britain. 

II.  Resolved,  unanimously,  That  it  was  granted  by 
Magna  Carta,  and  other  the  good  laws  and  statutes  of 
England,  and  confirmed  by  the  Petition  and  Bill  of 
Rights,  that  the  subject  should  not  be  compelled  to 
contribute  to  any  tax,  talliage,  aid,  or  other  like  charges 
not  set  by  common  consent  of  Parliament. 

III.  Resolved,  unanimously,  That  by  a  royal  charter, 
granted  by  his  Majesty,  King  Charles  I  in  the  eighth 
year  of  his  reign  and  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thou- 
sand six  hundred  and  thirty-two,  to  Cecilius,  then  Lord 
Baltimore,  it  was,  for  the  encouragement  of  the  people 
to  transport  themselves  and  families  into  this  province, 
among  other  things,  covenanted  and  granted  by  his  said 
Majesty  for  himself,  his  heirs,  and  successors,  as  followeth : 

i  L.  H.  J.,  September  24,  1765. 


480  MARYLAND   AS    A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

...  "  And  further,  our  pleasure  is,  and  by  these  presents 
for  us,  our  heirs  and  successors,  we  do  covenant  and  grant, 
to  and  with  the  said  now  Lord  Baltimore,  his  heirs  and 
assigns,  that  we,  our  heirs  and  successors,  shall,  at  no  time 
hereafter,  set  or  make,  or  cause  to  be  set,  any  imposition, 
custom  or  other  taxation,  rate  or  contribution  whatsoever, 
in  or  upon  the  dwellers  and  inhabitants  of  the  aforesaid 
province,  for  their  lands,  tenements,  goods  or  chattels, 
within  the  said  province,  or  in  or  upon  any  goods  or  mer- 
chandises within  the  said  province,  or  to  be  laden  and 
unladen  within  any  of  the  ports  or  harbors  of  the  said 
province:  And  our  pleasure  is,  and  for  us,  our  heirs  and 
successors,  we  charge  and  command,  that  this  our  decla- 
ration shall  be  henceforward,  from  time  to  time,  received 
and  allowed  in  all  our  courts,  and  before  all  the  judges 
of  us,  our  heirs  and  successors,  for  a  sufficient  and  lawful 
discharge,  payment,  and  acquittance:  commanding  all  and 
singular  our  officers  and  ministers  of  us,  our  heirs  and 
successors,  and  enjoining  them  upon  pain  of  our  high  dis1 
pleasure,  that  they  do  not  presume,  at  any  time,  to  attempt 
anything  to  the  contrary  of  the  premises,  or  that  they  do 
in  any  sort  withstand  the  same ;  but  that  they  be  at  all 
times  aiding  and  assisting,  as  is  fitting,  unto  the  said  now 
Lord  Baltimore,  and  his  heirs,  and  to  the  inhabitants  and 
merchants  of  Maryland  aforesaid,  their  servants,  ministers, 
factors,  and  assigns,  in  the  full  use  and  fruition  of  the 
benefit  of  this  our  charter." 

IV.  Resolved,  That  it  is  the  unanimous  opinion  of  this 
house  that  the  said  charter  is  declaratory  of  the  constitu- 
tional rights  and  privileges  of  the  freemen  of  this  province. 

V.  Resolved,  unanimously,  That  trials  by  juries  are  the 
grand  bulwark  of  liberty,  the  undoubted  birthright  of 
every  Englishman,  and  consequently  of  every  British  sub- 
ject in  America ;  and  that  the  erecting  other  jurisdictions 


RELATIONS   WITH    THE   HOME   GOVERNMENT         481 

for   the  trial  of  matters  of   fact   is  unconstitutional,  and 
renders  the  subject  insecure  in  his  liberty  and  property. 

VI.  Resolved,  That  it  is  the  unanimous  opinion  of  this 
house  that  it  cannot,  with  any  truth  or  propriety,  be  said 
that  the  freemen  of  this  province  of  Maryland  are  repre- 
sented in  the  British  Parliament. 

VII.  Resolved,  unanimously,  That  his  Majesty's  liege 
people  of  this  ancient  province  have  always  enjoyed  the 
right  of  being  governed  b}^  laws,  to  which  they  themselves 
have  consented,  in  the  articles  of  taxes  and  internal  polity ; 
and  that  the  same  hath  never  been  forfeited,  or  any  way 
yielded  up,  but  hath  been  constantly  recognized  by  the 
king  and  people  of  Great  Britain. 

VIII.  Resolved,  That  it  is  the  unanimous  opinion  of  this 
house  that  the  representatives  of  the  freemen  of  this  prov- 
ince, in  their  legislative  capacity,  together  with  the  other 
parts  of  the  legislature,  have  the  sole  right  to  lay  taxes 
and  impositions  on  the  inhabitants  of  this  province,  or 
their  property  and  effects,  and  that  the  laying,  imposing, 
levying,  or  collecting  any  tax  on  or  from  the  inhabitants 
of  Maryland,  under  color  of  any  other  authority,  is  uncon- 
stitutional, and  a  direct  violation  of  the  rights  of  the 
freemen  of  this  province."1 

Charles  Garth  was  appointed  to  represent  Maryland  X 
before  the  home  government,  and  the  concluding  words  of 
his  instructions  sent  from  the  lower  house,  in  December, 
were  :  "  Is  it  generous  or  just  that  odious  distinctions 
should  be  made  between  subjects  of  the  same  state? 
Americans  as  men  are  entitled  to  justice,  as  subjects  to 
protection,  and  as  British  subjects  to  trials  by  juries. 
They  have  their  rights  and  are  grieved  at  their  infraction. 
Whilst  America  languished  under  an  almost  insupportable 
load  of  debt  to  her  Mother  Country,  her  trade,  her  first 

1  L.  H.  J.,  September  28,  1765. 


Ifl 


482  MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

hope,  equally  advantageous  to  both,  cramped  and  almost 
ruined  by  the  act  mentioned  before  [the  act  restricting  the 
colonial  exportation  of  iron  and  lumber],  and  the  number 
and  severity  of  hovering  Guarda  Costas,  came  the  tremen- 
dous Stamp  Act  armed  with  all  its  excessive  penalties,  big 
with  the  entire  ruin  of  more  than  two  million  of  subjects. 
Our  trade  is  now  at  an  end.  Our  specie  is  drained  by 
remittances.  Projects  and  enterprises  have  ceased  amongst 
us.  Our  vessels,  our  lands,  are  to  be  sold,  but  there  are 
no  purchasers.  We  want  the  British  manufactures,  but 
cannot  pay  for  them.  What  would  Great  Britain  have  ? 
She  had  everything  by  her  trade  the  Colonists  could 
command.  She  cannot  have  it  by  her  trade  and  taxes 
both.  By  her  trade  she  always  had  the  balance  gained 
by  the  Colonies  from  foreigners ;  by  her  taxes  she 
throws  the  trade  of  the  Colonies  into  the  hands  of  For- 
eigners." * 

Finally,  a  few  days  after  these  instructions  had  been 
drawn  up,  the  governor  was  presented  with  the  following 
remonstrance :  "  The  unhappy  prevalence  of  small-pox 
from  the  month  of  March  to  that  of  September  last  ren- 
dered a  convention  of  the  Assembly  within  that  time 
impracticable ;  but  we  are  ignorant  of  any  reasons  that 
could  occasion  the  long  intervention  from  November,  1763, 
to  last  March,  within  which  time  circumstances  of  a 
peculiar  nature  required  a  meeting  of  the  Assembly,  which 
was  prevented  by  prorogation.  It  is  incumbent  on  us,  as 
the  representatives  of  a  free  people,  to  remonstrate  against 
that  measure ;  especially  as  it  prevailed  at  a  time  so  very 
critical  to  the  rights  of  America ;  at  a  time  when  the  good 
people  of  this  province  ardently  wished  for  an  opportunity 
to  express,  by  their  representatives  in  assembly,  the  sense 
of   a   scheme   then   entertained  by  the  British  House  of 

i  L.  H.  J.,  December  6,  1765. 


RELATIONS    WITH   THE   HOME   GOVERNMENT         483 

Commons,  of  imposing  stamp  duties  on  the  colonies ;  and 
for  want  of  which  their  involuntary  silence  on  a  subject 
so  interesting  and  important  has  been  construed  by  a  late 
political  writer  of  Great  Britain  as  an  acquiescence  in  that 
intended  project."1 

Before  any  of  the  stamped  paper  was  near,  there  was  a 
disturbance  which  made  it  seem  probable  that  if  any  of 
it  were  brought  within  reach  of  the  people,  they  would  be 
no  less  violent  than  they  had  been  toward  him  who  was 
to  have  distributed  it.  Early  in  September,  the  arrival 
at  Annapolis  of  an  English  vessel  led  a  number  of  people 
to  inquire  if  any  of  the  paper  was  on  board.  When  the 
commander  had  refused  to  give  a  direct  answer,  one  of 
those  who  had  made  the  inquiry  fastened  to  his  hat  a 
paper  on  which  appeared  the  words,  "No' Stamp  Act,"  and, 
wearing  this  head-gear,  went  to  the  tavern  and  entered 
the  room  in  which  the  commander  was  sitting.  The  com- 
mander, regarding  this  as  an  intended  affront,  put  the  man 
out  and  ordered  four  of  the  crew  to  keep  him  out.  This 
led  to  a  dispute  between  one  of  the  passengers  and  John 
Hammond,  one  of  the  liberals  in  the  Assembly.  The 
dispute  turned  into  a  fight,  and  Hammond  was  worsted. 
But  during  the  fight,  the  cry  went  through  the  town  that 
the  commander  was  murdering  Hammond  ;  and  this 
brought  a  crowd  which  wounded  the  commander  quite 
severely  and  forced  Hammond's  antagonist  to  swim  aboard 
in  order  to  save  his  life.2 

This  affair,  the  treatment  of  Hood,  and  the  refusal  of 
the  lower  house  to  give  its  consent  to  the  landing  of  some 
of  the  paper  that  was  later  brought  within  the  harbor  of 
Annapolis,  caused  the  governor  and  council  to  fear  that, 
if  landed,  its  burning  could  not  be  prevented ;  and,  as  a 

J  L.  H.  J.,  December  13,  1765. 

2  jSharpe's  Correspondence,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  226. 


484         MARYLAND   AS    A    PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

consequence,  none  of  the  stamped  paper  ever  cast  a  shadow- 
on  Maryland  soil.1 

At  the  same  time  so  great  was  the  regard  for  law  that 
in  nearly  all  the  counties  the  courts  were  permitted  for 
several  months  to  defer  doing  business  that  by  the  act  of 
Parliament  required  the  use  of  stamped  paper.  The  Fred- 
erick County  court,  however,  did  not  hesitate  from  the  first. 
It  sat  in  November,  1765,  just  after  the  act  was  to  have 
gone  into  effect,  and  proceeded  with  all  its  regular  busi- 
ness after  it  had  expressed  itself  as  follows:  "It  is 
the  unanimous  resolution  and  opinion  of  this  court  that 
all  the  business  thereof  shall  and  ought  to  be  trans- 
acted in  the  usual  and  accustomed  manner  without  any 
inconvenience  or  delay  to  be  occasioned  from  the  want 
of  stamped  paper,  parchment,  or  vellum,  and  that  all  pro- 
ceedings shall  be  valid  and  effectual  without  the  use  of 
stamps,  and  they  enjoin  and  order  all  sheriffs,  clerks, 
counsellors,  attorneys,  and  all  officers  of  the  court  to  pro- 
ceed in  their  several  avocations  as  usual,  wdiich  resolution 
and  opinion  are  grounded  on  the  following  and  other 
reasons : — 

"First.  It  is  conceived  there  hath  not  been  a  legal 
publication  yet  made  of  any  act  of  Parliament  imposing  a 
stamp  duty  on  the  Colonies.  Therefore  this  court  are  of 
the  opinion  that  until  the  existence  of  such  an  act  is 
properly  notified  it  would  be  culpable  in  them  to  permit 
or  suffer  a  total  stagnation  of  business  which  must  inevi- 
tably be  productive  of  innumerable  injuries  and  have  a 
tendency  to  subvert  all  principles  of  civil  government. 

"  Second.  As  no  stamps  are  yet  arrived  in  this  Province, 
and  the  inhabitants  have  no  means  of  procuring  any,  this 
court  are  of  opinion  that  it  would  be  an  instance  of  the 

1  L.  H.  J.,  September  20  and  November  6,  1765  ;  Sharpe's  Correspond- 
ence, Vol.  Ill,  p.  232. 


RELATIONS   WITH   THE   HOME   GOVERNMENT         485 

most  wanton  oppression  to  deprive  any  person  of  a  legal 
remedy  for  the  recovery  of  his  property  for  omitting  that 
which  it  is  impossible  to  perform." 

The  publication  of  the  Maryland  Gazette,  which,  out  of 
respect  for  law,  the  editor  had  discontinued  in  October, 
1765,  was  resumed  on  January  30,  1766,  with  a  confession 
that  its  discontinuance  had  been  due  to  an  error  in  judg- 
ment. 

On  the  twenty-fourth  day  of  the  following  month  several 
prominent  men  of  Baltimore  County  organized  themselves 
as  Sons  of  Liberty,  resolved  to  oblige  the  several  provin- 
cial officers  to  open  their  respective  offices  and  proceed 
to  business,  and  invited  the  gentlemen  of  the  neighboring 
counties  to  organize  themselves  likewise  and  meet  them  at 
Annapolis  to  join  in  the  undertaking.  Accordingly,  only 
two  days  later,  Baltimore,  Anne  Arundel,  and  Kent  coun- 
ties were  represented  in  a  meeting  at  Annapolis  ;  and  after 
hearing  different  proposals  and  debating  thereon  with 
decency,  coolness,  and  order,  it  was  resolved  to  make  a 
written  application  to  the  chief  justice  of  the  provincial 
court,  the  secretary,  the  commissary  general,  and  the  judges 
of  the  land  office  to  open  their  respective  offices  and 
proceed  as  usual  to  the  execution  of  their  duties  on  the 
thirty-first  day  of  March,  or  sooner,  if  a  majority  of  the 
supreme  courts  in  the  northern  colonies  should  proceed  to 
business  before  that  time.  Before  adjourning,  it  was  fur- 
ther resolved  to  invite  the  Sons  of  Liberty  in  every  county 
to  have  at  least  twelve  of  their  number  present  at  An- 
napolis on  the  last  day  of  March  to  see  the  event  of  the 
application  already  made.1  The  second  meeting  was  held 
on  the  day  appointed.  The  provincial  court  at  first  refused 
what  was  asked  even  upon  the  second  application  ;  but 
when  the  Sons  of  Liberty  persistently  demanded  immediate 

1  Maryland  Gazette,  March  6,  1766. 


486  MARYLAND   AS    A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

compliance,  the  court  yielded.  The  secretary,  the  com- 
missary general,  and  the  judges  of  the  land  office  likewise 
did  as  the  Sons  of  Liberty  requested.1  Before  the  news  of 
the  repeal  of  the  offensive  act  had  come,  in  April,  six  of 
the  county  courts  had,  in  the  March  session,  done  business 
as  formerly,  and  there  was  little  doubt  but  that  the  other 
eight  would  follow  their  example  in  the  coming  June. 

In  Maryland,  as  in  the  northern  colonies,  the  act  was, 
therefore,  as  good  as  nullified  before  it  was  known  that  it 
had  been  repealed.  Nevertheless,  the  news  of  the  repeal 
was  an  occasion  of  great  rejoicing  —  an  occasion,  also,  of 
exalting  the  already  recognized  talents  of  Daniel  Dulany, 
the  secretary  of  the  province,  whose  words  probably  had 
greater  weight  with  Parliament  in  passing  the  act  of  repeal 
than  did  those  of  any  other  American.  In  his  celebrated 
essay  against  the  act  Dulany  pointed  out,  in  a  clear,  simple, 
and  forcible  manner,  that  the  colonists  not  only  were  not 
represented  in  Parliament,  but  could  not  be  effectually 
represented  in  that  body;  that  taxation  without  represen- 
tation was  a  violation  of  the  common  law  of  England  ;  that 
each  of  the  colonial  charters  was  designed  to  make  the 
colonists  more  secure  in  their  rights  as  British  subjects  by 
declaring  and  confirming  their  right  to  the  protection  of 
that  common  law,  and  that  in  no  previous  exercise  of  par- 
liamentary power  over  the  colonies  was  revenue  the  single 
or  even  the  direct  purpose.  With  far-reaching  sagacity, 
he  maintained  that  the  colonists  by  manufacturing  for 
themselves  would  remove  the  danger  of  being  oppressed, 
and  teach  the  mother  country  to  regard  her  colonies  as  a 
part  of  herself  and  not  merely  as  her  possessions.  On  this 
point  a  few  of  his  own  words  were  :  "  Let  the  manufacture 
of  America  be  the  symbol  of  dignity,  the  badge  of  virtue, 
and  it  will  soon  break  the  fetters  of  distress.     A  garment 

1  Maryland  Gazette,  April  3,  1766. 


RELATIONS   WITH   THE   HOME   GOVERNMENT         487 

of  linsey-woolsey,  when  made  the  distinction  of  real  patri- 
otism, is  more  honorable  and  attractive  of  respect  and 
veneration  than  all  the  pageantry,  and  the  robes,  and  the 
plumes,  and  the  diadem  of  an  emperor  without  it.  Let  the 
emulation  be  not  in  richness  and  variety  of  foreign  pro- 
duction ;  but  in  the  improvement  and  perfection  of  our 
own.  Let  it  be  demonstrated  that  the  subjects  of  the 
British  empire  in  Europe  and  America  are  the  same,  that 
the  hardships  of  the  latter  will  ever  recoil  upon  the  former. 
In  theory  it  is  supposed  that  each  is  equally  important  to 
the  other,  that  all  partake  of  the  adversity  and  depression 
of  any.  The  theory  is  just,  and  time  will  certainly  estab- 
lish it ;  but  if  another  principle  should  be  ever  hereafter 
adopted  in  practice  and  a  violation  deliberate,  cruel,  un- 
grateful, and  attended  with  every  circumstance  of  provo- 
cation be  offered  to  our  fundamental  rights,  why  should 
we  leave  it  to  the  slow  advance  of  time  ...  to  prove 
what  might  be  demonstrated  immediately?  Instead  of 
moping,  and  puling,  and  whining  to  excite  compassion  ; 
in  such  a  situation  we  ought  with  spirit,  and  vigor,  and 
alacrity,  to  bid  defiance  to  tyranny  by  exposing  its 
impotence,  by  making  it  as  contemptible  as  it  would  be 
detestable.  By  a  vigorous  application  to  manufactures, 
the  consequence  of  oppression  in  the  colonies  to  the 
inhabitants  of  Great  Britain  would  strike  home  immedi- 
ately. None  would  mistake  it.  Craft  and  subtilty  would 
not  be  able  to  impose  upon  the  most  ignorant  and  credulous  ; 
for  if  any  should  be  so  weak  of  sight  as  not  to  see,  they 
would  not  be  so  callous  as  not  to  feel  it.  Such  con- 
duct would  be  the  most  dutiful  to  the  mother  country. 
It  would  point  out  the  distemper  when  the  remedy  was 
easy."  It  was  acknowledged  in  the  northern  colonies  that 
this   essay  "  poured  in   light   where   all  was  darkness." J 

1  Dulany  Papers. 


488         MARYLAND   AS   A    PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

From  it,  the  great  Pitt,  in  speaking  for  repeal,  derived 
power.  Amid  the  rejoicing  that  followed  the  news  of  the 
repeal,  Dulany's  health  was  drunk  many  times  both  within 
and  beyond  the  borders  of  Maryland.1 

And  yet  there  were  English  politicians  who  were  too 
narrow,  too  vain,  or  too  short-sighted  to  learn  what  Dulany 
had  endeavored  to  teach  them.  They  still  contended  that 
it  was  expedient  to  tax  the  colonies.  The  rash  Townshend, 
boasting  "  that  he  knew  how  to  draw  a  revenue  from  the 
colonies  without  giving  them  offence,"  prevailed  upon  Par- 
liament, in  the  year  1767,  to  impose  duties  on  tea,  glass, 
paper,  and  painters'  colors,  and  to  authorize  the  customs 
officers  to  make  use  of  general  writs  of  assistance  whereby 
they  would  be  empowered  at  their  pleasure  to  make  a  forci- 
ble entry  into  any  private  house  for  the  purpose  of  search- 
ing for  smuggled  goods. 

Upon  hearing  that  such  duties  were  to  be  collected  in 
such  a  manner,  the  Assembly  of  Massachusetts  sent  a  cir- 
cular letter  to  the  other  assemblies,  urging  that  harmonious 
petitions  against  such  acts  of  parliament  be  made  to  the 
home  government.  Hillsborough,  secretary  of  state,  re- 
quested Governor  Sharpe  to  do  his  utmost  to  prevail  upon 
the  Assembly  of  Maryland  to  treat  the  Massachusetts  letter 
"  with  the  contempt  it  deserved."  Sharpe,  accordingly, 
asked  that  no  notice  be  taken  of  the  said  letter.2  But  the 
lower  house,  in  its  reply  given  June  21,  1768,  interpreted 
this  as  an  interference  with  the  right  of  petition,  declared 
it  should  not  be  prevented  by  intimidation  from  doing 
what  was  right,  and  then  concluded  as  follows :  "  What  we 
shall  do  upon  this  occasion,  or  whether,  in  consequence 
of  that  letter,  we  shall  do  anything,  it  is  not  our  present 
business  to  communicate  to  your  Excellency;  but  of  this, 
be  pleased  to  be  assured,  that  we  cannot  be  prevailed  on  to 

1  Maryland  Gazette.  2  C.  R.,  June  20,  1768. 


RELATIONS    WITH    THE   HOME   GOVERNMENT         489 

take  no  notice  of,  or  to  treat  with  the  least  degree  of  con- 
tempt, a  letter  so  expressive  of  duty  and  loyalty  to  the 
Sovereign,  and  so  replete  with  just  principles  of  liberty; 
and  your  Excellency  may  depend  that  whenever  we  appre- 
hend the  rights  of  the  people  to  be  affected,  we  shall  not 
fail  boldly  to  assert,  and  steadily  endeavor  to  maintain  and 
support  them,  always  remembering  what  we  could  wish 
never  to  be  forgot,  that  by  the  Bill  of  Rights  it  is  declared, 
4  That  it  is  the  right  of  the  subject  to  petition  the  king, 
and  all  commitments  and  prosecutions  for  such  petitioning 
are  illegal.' " 

On  the  same  day,  the  same  house  drew  up  the  following 
petition  to  the  king  :  — 

"  Your  Majesty's  most  dutiful  and  loyal  subjects,  the 
representatives  of  your  Province  of  Maryland,  happy  in 
their  allegiance  to  the  best  of  Kings,  and  warm  in  affection 
and  attachment  to  your  sacred  person  and  government, 
with  all  humility  beg  leave  to  approach  the  throne  and 
supplicate  your  Majesty,  ever  graciously  inclined  to  hear 
the  just  complaints  of  your  most  remote  subjects. 

"  Your  Majesty's  people  of  this  province  conceive  it  a 
fixed  and  unalterable  principle  in  the  nature  of  things,  and 
a  part  of  every  idea  of  property,  that  whatever  a  man  hath 
honestly  acquired  cannot  be  taken  from  him  without  his 
consent :  This  immutable  principle  they  humbly  apprehend 
is  happily  ingrafted  as  a  fundamental  into  the  English  con- 
stitution as  is  fully  declared  by  Magna  Carta  and  by  the 
Petition  and  Bill  of  Rights.  Hence  it  is  that  your  Majesty's 
most  distant  subjects  are  justly  entitled  to  all  the  rights, 
liberties,  privileges,  and  immunities  of  your  subjects  born 
within  the  Kingdom  of  England.  [Here  the  exemption 
clause  in  the  Maryland  charter  is  quoted.] 

"  It  is  therefore  with  the  deepest  sorrow,  may  it  please 
your  most  excellent  Majesty,  that  we  now  approach  the 


490         MARYLAND   AS    A    PROPRIETARY    PROVINCE 

throne  on  behalf  of  your  faithful  subjects  of  this  province 
with  all  humility  to  represent  to  your  Majesty  that  by  the 
several  Statutes  lately  enacted  in  the  Parliament  of  Great 
Britain  by  which  sundry  rates  and  duties  are  to  be  raised 
and  collected  within  your  Majesty's  Colonies  in  America 
for  the  sole  and  express  purpose  of  raising  a  revenue,  this 
great  fundamental  principle  of  the  Constitution  is,  in  our 
opinion,  infringed.  The  people  of  this  Province,  Royal 
Sir,  are  not  in  any  manner  nor  can  they  ever  possibly  be 
effectually  represented  in  the  British  Parliament;  while 
therefore  your  Majesty's  Commons  of  Great  Britain  con- 
tinue to  give  and  grant  the  property  of  the  people  in 
America,  your  faithful  subjects  in  this  and  every  other 
colony  must  be  deprived  of  that  most  invaluable  privilege, 
the  power  of  granting  their  own  money ;  and  of  every 
opportunity  of  manifesting  by  cheerful  aids,  their  attach- 
ment to  the  King,  and  zeal  for  his  service,  they  must  be 
cut  off  from  all  intercourse  with  their  Sovereign,  and 
expect  not  to  hear  of  the  royal  approbation,  they  must  sub- 
mit to  the  power  of  the  Commons  of  Great  Britain,  and, 
precluded  the  blessings,  shall  scarcely  retain  the  name  of 
freedom. 

"May  we  then,  most  gracious  Sovereign,  be  permitted 
humbly  to  implore  your  tender  consideration  of  this 
unhappy  circumstance  of  your  American  people.  May 
we  pray  that  your  Majesty  will  extend  to  your  faithful 
people  of  Maryland  that  paternal  regard  which  your  Maj- 
esty hath  so  invariably  shown  to  the  just  rights  of  all  your 
subjects;  and  be  graciously  pleased  to  grant  them  such 
relief  as  to  your  Majesty's  wisdom  and  justice  shall  seem 
meet."  * 

For  this  non-compliance  with  the  request  of  the  home 
government,  made  in  Hillsborough's  letter,  the  governor 

i  L.  H.  J.,  June  21,  1768. 


RELATIONS    WITH   THE   HOME   GOVERNMENT         491 

immediately  prorogued  the  Assembly  —  refraining  from 
dissolving  it  only  through  fear  of  the  consequences ;  and 
thereafter  the  contest  with  the  mother  country  was  carried 
on  independently  of  the  Assembly,  which  for  several  ses- 
sions was  so  busily  and  so  warmly  engaged  in  the  contro- 
versy over  fees  and  over  the  clergy.  An  organization  was 
nevertheless  required  for  that  contest.  With  the  widening 
of  the  breach  between  the  colonies  and  the  mother  country, 
the  new  organization  of  Maryland  became  possessed  of  all 
the  powers  of  government.  For  a  time  the  new  popular 
government  and  the  old  proprietary  government  existed 
side  by  side ;  but  gradually  the  new  caused  the  old  to  dis- 
appear. And  the  admirable  way  in  which  this  transition 
was  made  was  due  both  to  the  irresolution  and  bountiful 
good  nature  of  Governor  Eden  and  to  the  fact  that  the 
statesmen  of  Maryland  were  not  only  skilled  in  private 
law  but  were  adepts  in  public  law  and  not  intoxicated  with 
an  emotional  political  philosophy  so  prevalent  in  those 
days. 

Within  less  than  a  year  after  the  above-mentioned 
prorogation,  several  of  the  counties  entered  into  resolu- 
tions of  non-importation  of  British  superfluities.1  Then 
the  people  of  Anne  Arundel  County  sent  out  an  invitation 
for  committees  from  the  several  counties  to  meet  at  An- 
napolis for  the  purpose  of  forming  a  non-importation  asso- 
ciation for  the  whole  province.  A  full  meeting  was  the 
response ;  and  on  June  22,  1769,  after  agreeing  that  the 
imposing  of  the  offensive  duties  had  a  direct  and  manifest 
tendency  to  deprive  the  colonists  of  all  political  freedom, 
and  that  the  circumstances  made  it  necessary  to  prevent 
the  use  of  foreign  luxuries  and  superfluities,  it  was  re- 
solved not  to  import  any  of  the  dutiable  goods  —  except 
small  quantities  of  paper  —  not  to  import  from  Great  Brit- 

1  Maryland  Gazette,  May  11,  1769. 


492  MARYLAND   AS    A    PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

ain  any  of  the  articles  of  merchandise  included  in  a  list 
of  about  one  hundred  named  in  the  resolutions;  not  to 
import  any  wines  whatever,  or  purchase  the  same  from 
any  person  whatever;  not  to  kill  or  suffer  to  be  killed  any 
ewe  lamb  yeaned  before  the  first  of  May  of  any  year;  and 
not  to  deal  with  any  one  violating  or  taking  advantage  of 
the  resolutions,  but  to  regard  him  as  an  enemy.1  After  the 
meeting  the  resolutions,  drawn  up  in  the  form  of  an  agree- 
ment, were  circulated  in  each  of  the  counties  for  signatures. 

While  this  agreement  was  being  signed,  the  news  came 
that  the  home  government  had  decided  to  take  off  all  the 
duties  except  that  on  tea.  Yet  that  decision  had  been 
arrived  at  not  on  the  ground  that  those  duties  were  un- 
just to  the  colonies,  but  on  the  ground  that  —  being  laid 
on  articles  of  British  manufacture  —  they  were  "  contrary 
to  the  true  principles  of  commerce."  It  was  still  main- 
tained that  it  was  expedient  to  raise  a  revenue  in  the 
colonies ;  and,  what  was  still  more  offensive  to  some  colo- 
nists, there  was  a  movement  to  revive  the  statutes  of 
Henry  VIII,  for  the  punishment  of  treason  committed  out 
of  the  king's  dominions,  and  so  to  construe  it  that  persons 
charged  with  treason  in  America  might  be  carried  to  Eng- 
land for  trial. 

From  the  first,  the  removal  of  the  duties  on  glass,  paper, 
and  colors  caused  many  colonists  outside  of  Maryland  to 
be  disposed  to  give  up  the  non-importation  association. 
But  in  Maryland,  committees  from  the  several  counties 
met  again  at  Annapolis  in  December,  1769,  and  unani- 
mously resolved  that  the  resolutions  passed  at  the  June 
meeting  "  be  most  strictly  adhered  to,  and  preserved  in- 
violate," and  that  each  and  every  gentleman  present  would 
"  use  his  utmost  endeavor  to  those  laudable  ends."  2     Two 

1  Maryland  Gazette,  June  29,  1769. 

2  Ibid.,  December  21,  1769. 


RELATIONS   WITH   THE   HOME   GOVERNMENT         493 

months  later,  upon  the  arrival  in  Annapplis  of  a  brig  with 
a  cargo  of  British  goods,  a  meeting  of  the  citizens  of  An- 
napolis appointed  a  committee  to  inquire  into  the  matter. 
When  that  committee  had  reported  that  the  goods  had 
been  ordered  and  shipped  contrary  to  the  non-importation 
agreement,  and  therefore  ought  not  to  be  landed,  the  brig 
was  ordered  and  compelled  to  return  to  London  with  all 
her  cargo.  For  some  time  there  was  such  firmness  and 
unity  in  Maryland  with  respect  to  non-importation  that 
British  merchants  were  brought  to  a  determination  not  to 
ship  any  goods  to  that  province  but  such  as  would  be 
agreeable  to  the  associators.1  Even  when,  in  October, 
1770,  the  Baltimore  merchants  —  directly  influenced  by 
the  Philadelphia  merchants  —  resolved  no  longer  to  abide 
by  the  agreement,  there  was  another  meeting  of  men  from 
the  counties,  held  at  Annapolis,  at  which  it  was  resolved 
that  the  Baltimore  merchants  had  "  shown  a  shameful  dis- 
regard as  well  to  their  own  engagement  as  to  the  most 
sacred  rights  and  liberties  of  America,  and  that  no  goods 
should  be  taken  from  those  who  broke  the  agreement."  2 

For  more  than  three  years  after  this  last  meeting,  all 
was  quiet  between  Maryland  and  the  mother  country. 
But  during  those  years,  the  destruction  of  tea  in  Boston 
harbor  had  caused  Parliament  to  pass  an  act  for  closing 
the  port  of  Boston,  and  to  consider  a  measure  for  subject- 
ing the  people  of  Massachusetts  to  a  military  control ;  and 
when  this  news  reached  Maryland  in  May,  1774,  the  feel- 
ing became  so  intense  in  that  province  that  rapid  progress 
was  made  toward  a  more  extensive  popular  organization. 

At  Annapolis  and  in  the  counties,  meetings  were  called 
for  choosing  a  committee  of  correspondence ;  and  at  some 
of  those  meetings  it  was  recommended  that  a  convention 
of  deputies,  chosen  by  the   several  counties,  be  held  at 

1  Eddis,  p.  142  et  seq.  2  Maryland  Gazette,  November  1,  1770. 


494         MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

Annapolis  as  soon  as  convenient  for  uniting  all  parts  of 
the  province  in  an  association,  and  that,  if  agreeable  to  the 
sense  of  the  sister  colonies,  delegates  be  appointed  to 
attend  a  general  congress  of  delegates  from  the  other 
colonies  to  effect  unity.1  In  accordance  with  that  recom- 
mendation a  convention  of  ninety-two  deputies  —  varying 
from  three  to  twelve  for  each  county  —  met  at  Annapolis 
on  the  twenty-second  day  of  June,  1774.  It  was  first 
agreed  that  each  county  should  have  but  one  vote,  and 
that  a  majority  of  votes  should  determine  any  question. 
Then  it  was  resolved  that  the  last  offensive  measures  of 
Parliament  were  cruel  and  oppressive  invasions  of  the 
natural  rights  of  the  people  of  Massachusetts  as  men,  and 
of  their  constitutional  rights  as  English  subjects,  and  that 
they  laid  the  foundation  for  the  utter  destruction  of  Brit- 
ish America.  It  was,  accordingly,  further  resolved  that 
subscriptions  be  opened  for  the  relief  of  the  people  of 
Boston,  that  all  commercial  intercourse  with  the  mother 
country  be  broken  off,  and  that  there  should  be  no  dealings 
with  the  people  of  any  colony  that  should  refuse  to  join 
in  the  general  plan.  Lastly,  this  convention  recommended 
that  a  congress  of  delegates  from  all  the  colonies  should 
assemble  at  an  early  date  ;  it  appointed  Matthew  Tilghman, 
Thomas  Johnson,  Jr.,  Robert  Goldsborough,  William  Paca, 
and  Samuel  Chase  delegates  for  Maryland ;  and  it  directed 
that  they  should  on  their  return  call  the  county  deputies 
together  again,  and  lay  before  them  the  measures  adopted 
by  the  general  congress.2 

That  general  congress  assembled  at  Philadelphia  on 
September  5,  1774,  and  in  the  following  month  the 
Marylanders  had  their  tea  burning.  In  October  of  this 
year  there  arrived  at  Annapolis  the  brig  Peggy  Stewart, 
with  an  assorted  cargo,  in  which  were  seventeen  packages 

1  Maryland  Gazette,  May  26,  1774.  2  Ibid.,  June  30,  1774. 


RELATIONS   WITH   THE   HOME   GOVERNMENT         495 

of  tea  consigned  to  James  and  Joseph  Williams,  mer- 
chants of  that  city.  Anthony  Stewart,"  the  owner  of  the 
brig,  was  one  of  the  signers  of  the  non-importation  agree- 
ment; but  in  order  to  land  the  rest  of  the  cargo,  he  paid 
the  duty  on  the  tea.  Thereupon,  the  four  members  of  the 
committee  for  Anne  Arundel  County  that  were  in  the  city 
called  a  meeting  of  the  people.  At  that  meeting  it  was 
unanimously  resolved  that  the  tea  should  not  be  landed, 
and  a  committee  of  twelve  was  appointed  to  attend  the 
landing  of  the  other  goods  and  prevent  the  landing  of  the 
tea.  A  little  later  eight  of  the  standing  committee  for 
the  county  called  the  two  Williamses  and  Stewart  before 
them ;  and  after  considering  their  offer  to  destroy  the  tea 
and  humbly  confess  their  offence,  the  committee  was  of 
the  opinion  that  nothing  further  ought  to  be  required. 
But  this  was  not  satisfactory  to  all  the  people,  and  not 
only  was  the  tea  burned,  but  Stewart,  fearing  a  riot, 
offered  to  burn  the  brig  with  his  own  hands.  His  offer 
was  accepted,  and  the  crowd  watched  until  it  was  burned 
to  the  water's  edge.1 

The  Maryland  delegates  to  the  Continental  Congress  at 
Philadelphia  issued  a  call  on  the  third  day  of  November, 
1774,  for  the  county  deputies  to  meet  at  Annapolis  on  the 
twenty-sixth  day  of  the  same  month.  Between  the  day  of 
the  call  and  the  day  of  the  meeting  there  was  elected  in 
each  of  the  several  counties  —  by  those  who  were  qualified 
to  vote  for  delegates  to  the  lower  house  of  the  proprietary 
assembly  —  a  large  committee  of  observation  for  carrying 
into  execution  the  association  that  had  been  agreed  upon 
in  the  Continental  Congress,  a  much  smaller  committee  of 
correspondence,  and  deputies  to  the  provincial  convention. 
When  the  convention  was  opened  on  the  twenty-first,  sev- 
eral of  the  counties,  from  lack  of  sufficient  notice  of  the 

1  Mainland  Gazette,  October  20,  1774. 


496         MARYLAND    AS   A    PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

time  of  meeting,  were  not  fully  represented  ;  and  so,  after 
the  proceedings  of  the  Continental  Congress  had  been  unan- 
imously approved,  there  was  an  adjournment  to  the  eighth 
day  of  December.  But  at  the  adjourned  meeting  eighty- 
five  deputies  were  present,  and  they  resolved  that  no  in- 
habitant of  the  province  ought  to  kill  a  sheep  under  four 
years  of  age,  that  more  flax,  hemp,  and  cotton  ought  to  be 
raised,  that  the  manufacture  of  cotton  and  linen  goods 
ought  to  be  increased,  that  all  men  between  the  ages  of 
sixteen  and  fifty  ought  to  form  themselves  into  militia 
Companies ;  they  also  resolved,  unanimously,  that  if  an 
attempt  should  be  made  to  carry  into  execution  by  force  in 
that  colony  the  late  acts  of  parliament,  relative  to  Massa- 
chusetts, or  if  an  effort  should  be  made  to  execute  by  force, 
in  that  or  any  other  colony,  the  assumed  power  of  Parlia- 
ment to  tax  the  colonies,  Maryland  would  support  those 
attacked  to  the  utmost  of  her  power.  In  accordance  with 
the  agreement  made  at  the  Continental  Congress  that 
Maryland  should  raise  £10,000,  this  sum  was  now  ap- 
portioned among  the  several  counties,  and  the  committee 
of  observation  in  each  county  was  authorized  to  lay  out 
what  should  be  raised  in  the  purchase  of  arms  and  ammu- 
nition. Deputies  to  the  next  Continental  Congress  were 
appointed  and  authorized  to  agree  to  all  measures  which 
such  congress  should  deem  necessary  and  effectual  to  obtain 
a  redress  of  American  grievances.  A  committee  of  obser- 
vation for  the  whole  province  was  also  appointed  and  given 
directions  with  respect  to  calling  the  next  provincial  con- 
vention.1 

That  convention  met  on  April  24,  1775,  and  continued 
in  session  nine  days.  One  hundred  deputies  were  present, 
they  voted  to  raise  <£600  more  by  subscription,  and  they 
passed    the    following    resolutions:    "Resolved   that   his 

1  Maryland  Gazette,  December  15,  1774. 


RELATIONS    WITH   THE   HOME   GOVERNMENT         497 

Majesty  King  George  III  is  lawful  and  rightful  King 
of  Great  Britain,  and  the  dominions  thereunto  belong- 
ing, and  that  the  good  people  of  this  province  do  owe, 
and  will  bear  faithful  and  true  allegiance  to  our  said 
lawful  and  rightful  King,  as  the  sovereign,  constitutional 
guardian,  and  protector  of  the  rights  of  all  his  subjects. 

"  Resolved,  that  it  is  earnestly  recommended  to  the  inhab- 
itants of  this  province  to  continue  the  regulation  of  the 
militia,  and  that  particular  attention  be  paid  to  forming 
and  exercising  the  militia  throughout  the  province,  and 
that  subscriptions  for  the  purposes  by  the  said  convention 
recommended  be  forthwith  completed  and  applied. 

"  Resolved,  that  it  is  the  sense  of  this  convention  that  the 
Honorable  Matthew  Tilghman,  Esq.,  Thomas  Johnson, 
Jr.,  Robert  Goldsborough,  Samuel  Chase,  William  Paca, 
John  Hall,  and  Thomas  Stone,  Esquires,  the  delegates 
of  our  province,  or  any  three  or  more  of  them,  do  join 
with  the  delegates  of  the  other  colonies  and  provinces, 
at  such  time  and  place  as  shall  be  agreed  on,  and  in  con- 
junction with  them  deliberate  upon  the  present  distressed 
and  alarming  state  of  the  British  Colonies  in  North 
America,  and  concur  with  them  in  such  measures  as  shall 
be  thought  necessary  for  the  defence  and  protection 
thereof,  and  most  conducive  to  the  public  welfare.  And 
as  this  convention  has  nothing  so  much  at  heart  as  a 
happy  reconciliation  of  the  differences  between  the  mother 
country  and  the  British  Colonies  in  North  America,  upon 
a  basis  of  constitutional  freedom,  so  has  it  a  confidence  in 
the  wisdom  and  prudence  of  the  said  delegates,  that  they 
will  not  proceed  to  the  last  extremity,  unless  in  their 
judgments  they  shall  be  convinced  that  such  measure  is 
indispensably  necessary  for  the  safety  and  preservation  of 
our  liberties  and  privileges.  That  in  the  present  state 
of  public  affairs,  this  convention  is  sensible  that  measures 

2k 


^ 


498         MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY  PROVINCE 

to  be  adopted  by  the  Continental  Congress  must  depend 
upon  many  events  which  may  happen  to  arise  ;  and  relying 
firmly  upon  the  wisdom  and  integrity  of  their  delegates, 
this  province  will,  as  far  as  in  their  power,  carry  into 
execution  such  measures  as  shall  be  agreed  on  and  recom- 
mended by  the  general  congress."1 

That  there  should  be  a  reconciliation  with  the  mother 
country  was  still  the  prevailing  desire  in  Maryland,  but 
the  course  of  events  in  the  north  was  against  it ;  and  after 
the  news  of  the  engagements  at  Concord  and  Lexington, 
and  the  news  of  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill  had  been  re- 
ceived, the  need  of  a  better  organized  provisional  gov- 
ernment was  felt.  To  that  end,  therefore,  the  convention 
again  assembled  on  the  twenty-sixth  day  of  July,  1775,  and, 
as  the  basis  of  the  new  government,  issued  the  following 
declaration  and  pledge,  which  was  subscribed  first  by  the 
deputies  themselves  and  then  offered  for  subscription  to 
the  freemen  in  the  several  counties :  — 

"  The  long  premeditated,  and  now  avowed,  design  of  the 
British  government,  to  raise  a  revenue  from  the  property 
of  the  colonists  without  their  consent,  on  the  gift,  grant, 
and  disposition  of  the  Commons  of  Great  Britain ;  and  the 
arbitrary  and  vindictive  statutes  passed  under  color  of  sub- 
duing a  riot,  to  snbdue  by  military  force  and  by  famine 
the  Massachusetts  Bay  ;  the  unlimited  power  assumed  by 
Parliament  to  alter  the  charter  of  that  Province  and  the 
constitutions  of  all  the  colonies,  thereby  destroying  the 
essential  securities  of  the  lives,  liberties,  and  properties 
of  the  colonists ;  the  commencement  of  hostilities  by  the 
ministerial  forces,  and  the  cruel  prosecution  of  the  war 
against  the  people  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  followed  by 
General  Gage's  proclamation,  declaring  almost  the  whole 
of  the  inhabitants  of  the  united  colonies,  by  name  or  de- 

Maryland  Gazette,  May  4,  1775. 


RELATIONS   WITH   THE   HOME   GOVERNMENT        499 

scription,  rebels  and  traitors,  are  sufficient  causes  to  arm 
a  free  people  in  defence  of  their  liberty,  and  justify  re- 
sistance, no  longer  dictated  by  prudence  merely,  but  by 
necessity ;  and  leave  no  other  alternative  but  base  submis- 
sion or  manly  opposition  to  uncontrollable  tyranny.  The 
Congress  chose  the  latter  ,•  and  for  the  express  purpose  of 
securing  and  defending  the  united  colonies,  and  preserv- 
ing them  in  safety  against  all  attempts  to  carry  the  above- 
mentioned  acts  into  execution  by  force  of  arms,  resolved 
that  the  said  colonies  be  immediately  put  into  a  state  of 
defence,  and  now  supports,  at  the  joint  expense,  an  army 
to  restrain  the  further  violence,  and  repel  the  future 
attacks  of  a  disappointed  and  exasperated  enemy. 

"  We,  therefore,  inhabitants  of  the  Province  of  Mary- 
land, firmly  persuaded  that  it  is  necessary  and  justifiable 
to  repel  force  by  force,  do  approve  of  the  opposition  by 
arms  to  the  British  troops  employed  to  enforce  obedience 
to  the  late  acts  and  statutes  of  the  British  Parliament  for 
raising  a  revenue  in  America,  and  altering  and  changing 
the  charter  and  constitution  of  the  Massachusetts  Bay, 
and  for  destroying  the  essential  securities  for  their  lives, 
liberties,  and  properties  of  the  subjects  in  the  united 
colonies.  And  we  do  unite  and  associate  as  one  band, 
and  firmly  and  solemnly  engage  and  pledge  ourselves  to 
each  other  and  to  America,  that  we  will,  to  the  utmost 
of  our  power,  promote  and  support  the  present  opposition, 
carrying  on  as  well  by  arms  as  by  the  continental  associa- 
tion restraining  our  commerce. 

"And  as  in  these  times  of  public  danger,  and  until  a 
reconciliation  with  Great  Britain  on  constitutional  princi- 
ples is  effected  (an  event  we  ardently  wish  may  soon  take 
place),  the  energy  of  government  may  be  greatly  impaired, 
so  that  even  zeal  unrestrained  may  be  productive  of  anarchy 
and  confusion,  we  do  in  like  manner  unite,  associate,  and 


500         MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY  PROVINCE 

solemnly  engage  in  the  maintenance  of  good  order,  and  the 
public  peace,  to  support  the  civil  power  in  the  due  execu- 
tion of  the  laws,  so  far  as  may  be  consistent  with  the  plan  of 
opposition ;  and  to  defend  with  our  utmost  power  all  per- 
sons from  every  species  of  outrage  to  themselves  or  their 
property,  and  to  prevent  any  punishment  from  being  in- 
flicted on  any  offenders  other  than  such  as  shall  be  ad- 
judged by  the  civil  magistrate,  the  Continental  Congress, 
our  Convention,  Council  of  Safety,  or  Committees  of 
Observation." 

Unrestricted  power  was  reserved  for  the  convention 
itself,  which,  in  the  future,  was  to  be  composed  of  five 
delegates  from  each  county  elected  for  one  year.  When 
the  convention  was  not  in  session,  its  power  was  to  be  exer- 
cised by  a  council  of  safety  of  its  own  choosing.  In  each 
county  a  committee  of  observation  was  also  to  be  elected 
annually,  —  the  election  to  be  held  under  the  inspection  of 
the  delegates  of  the  county  for  the  time  being,  —  and  these 
committees  of  observations  were  to  execute  the  will  of  the 
convention  or  of  the  council  of  safety.1 

But  so  strongly  attached  to  the  old  constitution  of  Mary- 
land were  the  men  who  organized  this  provisional  govern- 
ment that  they  still  cherished  hopes  of  a  reconciliation.  In 
their  instructions  of  January,  1776,  for  the  delegates  to  the 
Continental  Congress  the  members  of  the  convention  said: 
"  The  experience  which  we  and  our  ancestors  have  had  of 
the  mildness  and  equity  of  the  English  constitution,  under 
which  we  have  grown  up  and  enjoyed  a  state  of  felicity 
not  exceeded  by  any  people  we  know  of,  until  the  grounds 
of  the  present  controversy  were  laid  by  the  ministry  and 
Parliament  of  Great  Britain,  has  most  strongly  endeared 
to  us  that  form  of  government  from  whence  these  bless- 
ings have  been  derived,  and  makes  us  ardently  wish  for  a 

1  Maryland  Gazette,  August  14,  1775. 


RELATIONS   WITH   THE   HOME   GOVERNMENT         501 

reconciliation  with  the  mother  country  upon  terms  that 
may  insure  to  these  colonies  an  equal  and  permanent  free- 
dom. To  this  constitution  we  are  attached,  not  merely 
by  habit,  but  by  principle,  being  in  our  judgments  per- 
suaded it  is  of  all  known  systems  best  calculated  to  secure 
the  liberty  of  the  subject,  and  to  guard  against  despotism 
on  the  one  hand  and  licentiousness  on  the  other.  Im- 
pressed with  these  sentiments,  we  warmly  recommend  to 
you  to  keep  in  your  view  the  avowed  end  and  purpose  for 
which  these  colonies  originally  associated,  —  the  redress  of 
American  grievances  and  securing  the  rights  of  the  colo- 
nists." Farther  on  in  these  instructions,  the  delegates  were 
expressly  forbidden  to  assent  to  a  declaration  of  indepen- 
dence, or  to  any  alliance  with  any  foreign  power,  or  any 
confederation  of  the  colonies,  which  would  necessarily 
lead  to  separation,  unless  in  their  judgments  such  a  course 
should  be  deemed  absolutely  necessary  for  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  united  colonies. 

The  sentiment  in  favor  of  independence  was,  however, 
growing  in  the  Continental  Congress,  and  the  Maryland 
delegates  soon  found  themselves  alone  in  holding  back.' 
When  it  had  come  to  this,  the  convention  —  mindful  of 
the  fact  that  it  had  been  empowered  to  exercise  its  func- 
tions only  with  a  view  to  a  reconciliation,  and  being  of  the 
opinion  that  the  sovereign  power  was  in  the  people  — 
summoned  the  delegates  back  from  congress  and  asked  the 
people  of  each  county  to  instruct  their  deputies  how  to  act 
with  regard  to  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  The 
people  were  by  this  time  ready  for  the  declaration.  The 
restrictions  on  the  Maryland  delegates  were  accordingly 
rescinded.  On  the  fourth  of  July  they  adopted  the  famous 
Declaration  of  Independence,  and  thereafter  even  the 
shadow  of  the  proprietary  government  was  no  more. 

The  year  before,  Governor  Eden,  at  the  request  of  a  com- 


502         MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

mittee  of  the  convention,  had  given  up  the  arms  and  ammu- 
nition that  had  been  in  his  keeping  as  commander-in-chief. 
By  repeated  prorogations  he  had  kept  the  Assembly  from 
sitting  since  April,  1774.  Although  after  the  expiration 
of  the  time  for  which  the  members  of  the  lower  house  had 
been  elected  he  issued  new  writs  of  election,  yet  on  June 
24,  1776,  he  left  the  province,  and  the  convention  on  the 
day  following  forbade  the  election.  With  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  the  way  was  therefore  clear  for  the  fram- 
ing of  a  new  constitution  to  take  the  place  of  the  lord 
proprietor's  charter. 


From  chaos  to  order  and  to  the  triumph  of  mind  over 
matter,  the  universe  moves  on.  As  the  earth  is  made  to 
yield  more  of  what  man  needs,  society  becomes  more 
extensively  organized ;  and  as  society  becomes  more 
extensively  organized,  the  stronger  individuals  find  them- 
selves in  an  environment  conducive  to  a  larger  and  a 
higher  development.  For  this  reason  industrialism  is  the 
primary  basis  of  progress.  At  a  time  when  it  was  sup- 
posed that  the  material  welfare  of  a  nation  was  determined 
by  the  amount  of  precious  metals  which  she  had  in  her 
possession,  Spain  discovered  colonies  rich  in  such  metals, 
while  England  discovered  those  from  which  could  be  had 
only  the  raw  materials  for  manufacture.  But  by  the  utiliz- 
ing of  such  materials  English  industries  were  developed, 
and,  as  a  consequence,  a  freer  government  was  demanded. 

Maryland,  although  founded  by  a  Catholic,  was  never 
intended  merely  as  an  asylum  for  persecuted  Catholics, 
neither  was  it  intended  as  a  utopia  in  which  the  relations 
between  members  of  different  religious  sects  should  be 
regulated  solely  by  the  spirit  of  brotherly  love.  Lord 
Baltimore  laid  a  more  sure  foundation  ;  and  the  people  of 


RELATIONS   WITH   THE   HOME   GOVERNMENT        503 

his  province  sought  riches  in  tilling  the  soil.  For  a  period 
of  more  than  one  hundred  years  the  larger  part  of  the  soil 
which  they  tilled  was  so  well  adapted  to  tobacco  culture 
that  tobacco  was  the  staple  product.  While  this  fact, 
through  industrial  dependence,  kept  the  Marylanders  in 
close  touch  and  sympathy  with  the  mother  country, 
through  need  of  tobacco  inspection  and  payment  in  tobacco 
for  public  services,  it  invigorated  the  opposition  t6  the 
lord  proprietor.  Although  tobacco  culture  was  condu- 
cive to  slave  labor,  that  very  fact  taught  the  freemen  to 
value  their  own  freedom  all  the  more  highly.  The  fact 
that  the  people  were  both  the  tenants  of  the  lord  proprie- 
tor and  the  subjects  of  his  government  increased  the  force 
of  the  industrial  pressure  upon  the  government.  And  as 
the  lord  proprietor,  at  the  very  outset,  promised  religious 
toleration  in  the  interest  of  material  success,  so,  through- 
out the  entire  colonial  era,  the  church  was  weak,  and 
social  expediency  or  industrial  welfare,  instead  of  religious 
superstition  or  bigotry,  was  made  the  basis  of  law. 

But  through  all  the  years  when  these  industrial  forces 
were  making  for  popular  government,  a  high  respect  for 
law  was  maintained.  The  first  lord  proprietor  was  a 
trained  and  skilful  administrator,  and  for  forty-three  years 
he  laid  an  orderly  foundation.  The  Baltimore  family  then 
degenerated  about  as  fast  as  the  lord  proprietor  lost  power 
in  the  government;  but  from  the  time  the  lower  house 
won  its  victory  in  the  controversy  over  English  statutes 
the  proprietary  governors  of  Maryland,  with  the  exception 
of  two  short  intervals,  were  the  much-beloved  Ogle,  Sharpe, 
and  Eden.  The  men,  who,  above  all  others,  moulded  public 
opinion,  were  lawyers  of  the  nobler  type.  And  there  was 
a  generally  firm  adherence  to  the  laws  and  customs  of  the 
mother  country. 

Under  these  conditions,  the  transition  from  monarchy  to 


504         MARYLAND   AS   A   PROPRIETARY   PROVINCE 

democracy  in  Maryland  was  gradual  and  orderly.  In  the 
assembly  halls,  in  the  course  of  regular  parliamentary  pro- 
cedure, the  representatives  of  the  people  exercised  their 
power  of  debate  in  the  long  struggle  for  greater  equality 
of  rights  to  life  and  to  property.  After  many  failures,  a 
thriving  industrial  system,  with  a  sound  currency,  was 
established ;  and  by  the  close  of  the  colonial  era  com- 
modious public  buildings  were  in  process  of  construction, 
roads  were  being  built,  there  was  a  growing  impatience  for 
the  establishment  of  a  better  school  system,  and  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  need  of  competent  religious  teachers  had 
been  quickened.  Above  all,  public  life  in  proprietary 
Maryland  had  proved  to  be  an  excellent  school  for  the 
training  of  men  in  statecraft. 

Naturally,  therefore,  the  truly  patriotic  statesmen  of 
Maryland  longed  for  a  reconciliation  with  the  mother 
country,  in  order  that  their  old  government  might  be  con- 
tinued. But  when  it  was  seen  that  this  was  not  to  be, 
Maryland  joined  with  her  sister  colonies  in  severing  the 
maternal  tie  ;  and  after  that,  the  statesmen  of  the  Mary- 
land school  contributed  largely  of  their  power  in  making, 
perfecting,  and  preserving  the  now  much  cherished  federal 
tie.  When  the  larger  commonwealths  were  trying  to  make 
good  their  claim  to  territory  west  to  the  Mississippi  and 
even  to  the  Pacific,  and  when  the  Articles  of  Confedera- 
tion had  been  signed  by  all  the  other  commonwealths, 
Maryland  refused  to  sign  them  until  the  claims  in  question 
had  been  disallowed.  As  a  consequence,  a  greater  equality 
among  the  old  commonwealths  was  preserved,  and  the 
general  government  came  into  the  possession  of  the  first 
territory  out  of  which  new  commonwealths  were  to  be 
erected  and  admitted  into  the  union.  When  the  Articles 
of  Confederation  had  been  found  to  be  insufficient,  the  first 
meeting  that  looked  toward  the  formation  of  a  more  perfect 


RELATIONS   WITH   THE   HOME   GOVERNMENT         505 

union  was  held  at  the  capital  of  Maryland.  During  the 
War  of  1812,  when  the  national  capital  was  in  the  pos- 
session of  the  enemy,  and  when  a  part  of  New  England 
was  preparing  to  go  out  of  the  union,  Francis  Scot  Key, 
a  poet  and  eminent  jurist,  reared  among  the  beautiful 
hills  of  Frederick  County,  Maryland,  gave  to  his  country 
that  thrilling  national  hymn,  —  always  a  power  for  national 
unity,  —  "The  Star-Spangled  Banner."  Finally,  when 
Missouri  was  ready  for  admission  into  the  union,  and  the 
excited  abolitionists  —  with  more  good  intentions  than 
sound  statesmanship,  or  ability  to  interpret  the  powers  of 
congress  —  contended  that  she  should  be  admitted  with  re- 
strictions, the  brilliant  Pinckney,  trained  in  the  old  school 
of  Maryland  statesmen,  demonstrated  in  terms  unmistak- 
ably clear  that  in  the  case  in  hand  congress  had  only  the 
power  to  admit  into  an  equal  union  of  commonwealths 
equally  sovereign  ;  and  once  more  the  union  was  left 
unimpaired. 


APPENDIX. 

THE   CHARTER   OF  MARYLAND.1 

Charles,  by  the  grace  of  God,  of  England,  Scotland,  France, 
and  Ireland,  King,  Defender  of  the  Faith,  &c.  To  all  to  whom 
these  presents  shall  come,  Greeting. 

II.  Whereas  our  well  beloved  and  right  trusty  subject 
Cecilius  Calvert,  Baron  of  Baltimore,  in  our  kingdom  of  Ire- 
land, son  and  heir  of  George  Calvert,  knight,  late  baron  of  Bal- 
timore, in  our  said  kingdom  of  Ireland,  treading  in  the  steps  of 
his  father,  being  animated  with  a  laudable,  and  pious  zeal  for 
extending  the  Christian  religion,  and  also  the  territories  of  our 
empire,  hath  humbly  besought  leave  of  us,  that  he  may  trans- 
port, by  his  own  industry  and  expense,  a  numerous  colony  of 
the  English  nation,  to  a  certain  region,  herein  after  described, 
in  a  country  hitherto  uncultivated,  ^n  the  parts  of  America,  and 
partly  occupied  by  savages,  having  no  knowledge  of  the  Divine 
Being,  and  that  all  that  region,  with  some  certain  privileges 
and  jurisdictions,  appertaining  unto  the  wholesome  government 
and  state  of  his  colony  and  region  aforesaid,  may  by  our  royal 
highness  be  given,  granted,  and  confirmed  unto  him  and  his 
heirs. 

III.  Know  ye  therefore,  that  We,  encouraging  with  our 
royal  favor,  the  pious  and  noble  purpose  of  the  aforesaid  barons 
of  Baltimore,  of  our  special  grace,  certain  knowledge,  and  mere 
motion,  have  given,  granted,  and  confirmed,  and  by  this  our 
present  charter,  for  us,  our  heirs,  and  successors,  do  give,  grant, 
and  confirm,  unto  the  aforesaid  Cecilius,  now  baron  of  Balti- 
more, his  heirs,  and  assigns,  all  that  part  of  the  Peninsula,  or 

1  Bacon's  translation  from  the  Latin  ;  for  the  Latin  see  Proceedings  of 
the  Council,  1G36  to  1667,  pp.  3-12. 

507 


508  APPENDIX 

Chersonese,  lying  in  the  parts  of  America,  between  the  ocean 
on  the  east,  and  the  bay  of  Chesapeake  on  the  west,  divided 
from  the  residue  thereof  by  a  right  line  drawn  from  the  prom- 
ontory, or  head-land,  called  Watkin's  Point,  situate  upon  the 
bay  aforesaid,  near  the  river  Wighco,  on  the  west,  unto  the  main 
ocean  on  the  east ;  and  between  that  boundary  on  the  south, 
unto  that  part  of  the  bay  of  Delaware  on  the  north,  which 
lieth  under  the  fortieth  degree  of  north  latitude  from  the 
equinoctial,  where  New  England  is  terminated  :  and  all  the 
tract  of  that  land  within  the  metes  underwritten  (that  is  to 
say)  passing  from  the  said  bay,  called  Delaware  bay,  in  a  right 
line,  by  the  degree  aforesaid,  unto  the  true  meridian  of  the 
first  fountain  of  the  river  Potomac,  thence  verging  toward  the 
south,  unto  the  further  bank  of  the  said  river,  and  following 
the  same  on  the  west  and  south,  unto  a  certain  place  called 
Cinquack,  situate  near  the  mouth  of  the  said  river,  where  it 
disembogues  into  the  aforesaid  bay  of  Chesapeake,  and  thence 
by  the  shortest  line  unto  the  aforesaid  promontory  or  place, 
called  Watkin's  Point ;  so  that  the  whole  tract  of  land,  divided 
by  the  line  aforesaid,  between  the  main  ocean  and  Watkin's 
Point,  unto  the  promontory  called  Cape  Charles,  and  every  the 
appendages  thereof,  may  entirely  remain  excepted  for  ever  to 
us,  our  heirs,  and  successors. 

IV.  Also  We  do  grant,  and  likewise  confirm  unto  the  said 
baron  of  Baltimore,  his  heirs,  and  assigns,  all  islands  and  islets 
within  the  limits  aforesaid,  all  and  singular  the  islands  and 
islets,  from  the  eastern  shore  of  the  aforesaid  region,  towards 
the  east,  which  have  been,  or  shall  be  formed  in  the  sea,  situate 
within  ten  marine  leagues  from  the  said  shore ;  with  all  and 
singular  the  ports,  harbors,  bays,  rivers,  and  straits  belonging 
to  the  region  or  islands  aforesaid,  and  all  the  soil,  plains,  woods, 
mountains,  marshes,  lakes,  rivers,  bays,  and  straits,  situate,  or 
being  within  the  metes,  bounds,  and  limits  aforesaid,  with  the 
fishings  of  every  kind  of  fish,  as  well  of  whales,  sturgeons,  and 
other  royal  fish,  as  of  other  fish  in  the  sea,  bays,  straits,  or 
rivers,  within  the  premises,  and  the  fish  there  taken  :  and 
moreover   all   veins,  mines,  and  quarries,  as  well   opened   as 


APPENDIX  509 

hidden,  already  found,  or  that  shall  be  found  within  the  region, 
islands,  or  limits  aforesaid,  of  gold,  silver,  gems,  and  precious 
stones,  and  any  other  whatsoever,  whether  they  be  of  stones, 
or  metals,  or  of  any  other  thing,  or  matter  whatsoever :  and 
furthermore  the  patronages  and  advowsons  of  all  churches 
which  (with  the  increasing  worship  and  religion  of  Christ) 
within  the  said  region,  islands,  islets,  and  limits  aforesaid, 
hereafter  shall  happen  to  be  built,  together  with  license  and 
faculty  of  erecting  and  founding  churches,  chapels,  and  places 
of  worship,  in  convenient  and  suitable  places,  within  the  prem- 
ises, and  of  causing  the  same  to  be  dedicated  and  consecrated 
according  to  the  ecclesiastical  laws  of  our  kingdom  of  England,1 
with  all,  and  singular  such, [and  as  ample  rights,  jurisdictions, 
privileges,  prerogatives,  royalties,  liberties,  immunities,  and 
royal  rights,  and  temporal  franchises  whatsoever,  as  well  by 
sea  as  by  land,  within  the  region,  islands,  islets,  and  limits 
aforesaid,  to  be  had,  exercised,  used,  and  enjoyed,  as  any  bishop 
of  Durham,  within  the  bishopric  or  county  palatine  of  Durham, 
in  our  kingdom  of  England,  ever  heretofore  hath  had,  held, 
used,  or  enjoyed,  or  of  right  could,  or  ought  to  have,  hold,  use, 
or  enjoy. 

V.  And  We  do  by  these  presents,  for  us,  our  heirs  and  suc- 
cessors, make,  create,  and  constitute  him,  the  now  baron  of 
Baltimore,  and  his  heirs,  the  true  and  absolute  lords  and  pro- 
prietaries of  the  region  aforesaid,  and  of  all  other  the  prem- 
ises (except  the  before  excepted)  saving  always  the  faith  and 
allegiance  and  sovereign  dominion  due  to  us,  our  heirs,  and 
successors;  to  have,  hold,  possess,  and  enjoy  the  aforesaid 
region,  islands,  islets,  and  other  the  premises,  unto  the  afore- 
said now  baron  of  Baltimore,  and  to  his  heirs  and  assigns,  to 
the  sole  and  proper  behoof  and  use  of  him,  the  now  baron  of 
Baltimore,  his  heirs  and  assigns,  for  ever.  To  hold  of  us,  our 
heirs  and  successors,  kings  of  England,  as  of  our  castle  of 
Windsor,  in  our  county  of  Berks,  in  free  and  common  socage, 
by  fealty  only  for  all  services,  and  not  in  capite,  nor  by  knight's 

1  See  Bozman,  Vol.  II,  p.  11. 


510  APPENDIX 

service,  yielding  therefor  unto  us,  our  heirs  and  successors  two 
Indian  arrows  of  those  parts,  to  be  delivered  at  the  said  castle 
of  Windsor,  every  year,  on  Tuesday  in  Easter-week :  and  also 
the  fifth  part  of  all  gold  and  silver  ore,  which  shall  happen 
from  time  to  time,  to  be  found  within  the  aforesaid  limits. 

VI.  Now,  that  the  aforesaid  region,  thus  by  us  granted  and 
described,  may  be  eminently  distinguished  above  all  other 
regions  of  that  territory,  and  decorated  with  more  ample  titles, 
know  ye,  that  We,  of  our  more  special  grace,  certain  knowledge, 
and  mere  motion,  have  thought  fit  that  the  said  region  and 
islands  be  erected  into  a  province,  as  out  of  the  plenitude  of 
our  royal  power  and  prerogative,  We  do,  for  us,  our  heirs  and 
successors,  erect  and  incorporate  the  same  into  a  province,  and 
nominate  the  same  Maryland,  by  which  name  We  will  that 
it  shall  from  henceforth  be  called. 

VII.  And  forasmuch  as  We  have  above  made  and  ordained 
the  aforesaid  now  baron  of  Baltimore,  the  true  lord  and  pro- 
prietary of  the  whole  province  aforesaid,  know  ye  therefore 
further,  that  We,  for  us,  our  heirs  and  successors,,  do  grant  unto 
the  said  now  baron,  (in  whose  fidelity,  prudence,  justice,  and 
provident  circumspection  of  mind,  We  repose  the  greatest  con- 
fidence) and  to  his  heirs,  for  the  good  and  happy  government 
of  the  said  province,  free,  full,  and  absolute  power,  by  the  tenor 
of  these  presents,  to  ordain,  make,  and  enact  laws,  of  what  kind 
soever,  according  to  their  sound  discretions,  whether  relating 
to  the  public  state  of  the  said  province,  or  the  private  utility 
of  individuals,  of  and  with  the  advice,  assent,  and  approbation 
of  the  freemen  of  the  same  province,  or  of  the  greater  part  of 
them,  or  of  their  delegates  or  deputies,  whom  we  will  shall  be 
called  together  for  the  framing  of  laws,  when,  and  as  often  as 
need  shall  require,  by  the  aforesaid  now  baron  of  Baltimore, 
and  his  heirs,  and  in  the  form  which  shall  seem  best  to  him  or 
them,  and  the  same  to  publish  under  the  seal  of  the  aforesaid 
now  baron  of  Baltimore,  and  his  heirs,  and  duly  to  execute  the 
same  upon  all  persons,  for  the  time  being,  within  the  afore- 
said province,  and  the  limits  thereof,  or  under  his  or  their  gov- 
ernment and  power,  in   sailing   toward  Maryland,  or  thence 


APPENDIX  511 

returning,  outward-bound,  either  to  England,  or  elsewhere, 
whether  to  any  other  part  of  our,  or  of  any  foreign  dominions, 
wheresoever  established,  by  the  imposition  of  fines,  imprison- 
ment, and  other  punishment  whatsoever  •  even  if  it  be  necessary, 
and  the  quality  of  the  offence  require  it,  by  privation  of  mem- 
ber, or  life,  by  him  the  aforesaid  now  baron  of  Baltimore,  and 
his  heirs,  or  by  his  or  their  deputy,  lieutenant,  judges,  justices, 
magistrates,  officers,  and  ministers,  to  be  constituted  and 
appointed  according  to  the  tenor  and  true  intent  of  these  pres- 
ents, and  to  constitute  and  ordain  judges,  justices,  magistrates 
and  officers,  of  what  kind,  for  what  cause,  and  with  what  power 
soever,  within  that  land,  and  the  sea  of  those  parts,  and  in  such 
form  as  to  the  said  now  baron  of  Baltimore,  or  his  heirs,  shall 
seem  most  fitting:  and  also  to  remit,  release,  pardon,  and 
abolish,  all  crimes  and  offences  whatsoever  against  such  laws, 
whether  before,  or  after  judgment  passed;  and  to  do  all  and 
singular  other  things  belonging  to  the  completion  of  justice, 
and  to  courts,  pretorian  judicatories,  and  tribunals,  judicial 
forms  and  modes  of  proceeding,  although  express  mention 
thereof  in  these  presents  be  not  made ;  and,  by  judges  by  them 
delegated,  to  award  process,  hold  pleas,  and  determine  in  those 
courts,  pretorian  judicatories,  and  tribunals,  in  all  actions,  suits, 
cases,  and  matters  whatsoever,  as  well  criminal  as  personal,  real 
and  mixed,  and  pretorian :  which  said  laws,  so  to  be  published 
as  above  said,  We  will,  enjoin,  charge,  and  command,  to  be  most 
absolute  and  firm  in  law,  and  to  be  kept  in  those  parts  by  all 
the  subjects  and  liege-men  of  us,  our  heirs  and  successors,  so 
far  as  they  concern  them,  and  to  be  inviolably  observed  under 
the  penalties  therein  expressed,  or  to  be  expressed.  So  never- 
theless, that  the  laws  aforesaid  be  consonant  to  reason,  and  be 
not  repugnant  or  contrary,  but  (so  far  as  conveniently  may  be) 
agreeable  to  the  laws,  statutes,  customs,  and  rights  of  this  our 
kingdom  of  England. 

VIII.  And  forasmuch  as,  in  the  government  of  so  great  a 
province,  sudden  accidents  may  frequently  happen,  to  which 
it  will  be  necessary  to  apply  a  remedy,  before  the  freeholders 
of  the  said  province,  their  delegates,  or  deputies,  can  be  called 


512  APPENDIX 

together  for  the  framing  of  laws ;  neither  will  it  be  fit  that  so 
great  a  number  of  people  should  immediately,  on  such  emergent 
occasion,  be  called  together,  We,  therefore,  for  the  better 
government  of  so  great  a  province,  do  will  and  ordain,  and  by 
these  presents,  for  us,  our  heirs  and  successors,  do  grant  unto 
the  said  now  baron  of  Baltimore,  and  to  his  heirs,  that  the 
aforesaid  now  baron  of  Baltimore,  and  his  heirs,  by  them- 
selves, or  by  their  magistrates  and  officers,  thereunto  duly  to 
be  constituted  as  aforesaid,  may,  and  can  make  and  constitute 
fit  and  wholesome  ordinances  from  time  to  time,  to  be  kept  and 
observed  within  the  province  aforesaid,  as  well  for  the  conser- 
vation of  the  peace,  as  for  the  better  government  of  the  people 
inhabiting  therein,  and  publicly  to  notify  the  same  to  all  per- 
sons whom  the  same  in  any  wise  do  or  may  affect.  Which 
ordinances  We  will  to  be  inviolably  observed  within  the  said 
province,  under  the  pains  to  be  expressed  in  the  same.  So 
that  the  said  ordinances  be  consonant  to  reason,  and  be  not 
repugnant  nor  contrary,  but  (so  far  as  conveniently  may  be 
done)  agreeable  to  the  laws,  statutes,  or  rights  of  our  kingdom 
of  England:  and  so  that  the  same  ordinances  do  not,  in  any 
sort,  extend  to  oblige,  bind,  charge,  or  take  away  the  right  or 
interest  of  any  person  or  persons,  of,  or  in  member,  life,  free- 
hold, goods  or  chattels. 

IX.  Furthermore,  that  the  new  colony  may  more  happily 
increase  by  a  multitude  of  people  resorting  thither,  and  at  the 
same  time  may  be  more  firmly  secured  from  the  incursions  of 
savages,  or  of  other  enemies,  pirates,  and  ravagers  :  We,  there- 
fore, for  us,  our  heirs  and  successors,  do  by  these  presents  give 
and  grant  power,  license,  and  liberty,  to  all  the  liege-men  and 
subjects,  present  and  future,  of  us,  our  heirs  and  successors, 
except  such  to  whom  it  shall  be  expressly  forbidden,  to  trans- 
port themselves  and  their  families  to  the  said  province,  with 
fitting  vessels,  and  suitable  provisions,  and  therein  to  settle, 
dwell,  and  inhabit ;  and  to  build  and  fortify  castles,  forts,  and 
other  places  of  strength,  at  the  appointment  of  the  aforesaid 
now  baron  of  Baltimore,  and  his  heirs,  for  the  public  and 
their  own  defence;  the  statute  of  fugitives,  or  any  other  what- 


APPENDIX  m  513 

soever  to  the  contrary  of  the  premises  in  any  wise  notwith- 
standing. 

X.  We  will  also,  and  of  our  more  abundant  grace,  for  us, 
our  heirs  and  successors,  do  firmly  charge,  constitute,  ordain, 
and  command,  that  the  said  province  be  of  our  allegiance ;  and 
that  all  and  singular  the  subjects  and  liege-men  of  us,  our  heirs 
and  successors,  transplanted,  or  hereafter  to  be  transplanted 
into  the  province  aforesaid,  and  the  children  of  them,  and  of 
others  their  descendants,  whether  already  born  there,  or  here- 
after to  be  born,  be  and  shall  be  natives  and  liege-men  of  us, 
our  heirs  and  successors,  of  our  kingdom  of  England  and  Ire- 
land ;  and  in  all  things  shall  be  held,  treated,  reputed,  and 
esteemed  as  the  faithful  liege-men  of  us,  and  our  heirs  and 
successors,  born  within  our  kingdom  of  England ;  also  lands, 
tenements,  revenues,  services,  and  other  hereditaments  what- 
soever, within  our  kingdom  of  England,  and  other  our  dominions, 
to  inherit,  or  otherwise  purchase,  receive,  take,  have,  hold,  buy, 
and  possess,  and  the  same  to  use  and  enjoy,  and  the  same  to 
give,  sell,  alien  and  bequeath ;  and  likewise  all  privileges, 
franchises  and  liberties  of  this  our  kingdom  of  England,  freely, 
quietly,  and  peaceably  to  have  and  possess,  and  the  same  may 
use  and  enjoy  in  the  same  manner  as  our  liege-men  born,  or  to 
be  born  within  our  said  kingdom  of  England,  without  impedi- 
ment, molestation,  vexation,  impeachment,  or  grievance  of  us, 
or  any  of  our  heirs  or  successors ;  any  statute,  act,  ordinance, 
or  provision  to  the  contrary  thereof,  notwithstanding. 

XI.  Furthermore,  that  our  subjects  may  be  incited  to  under- 
take this  expedition  with  a  ready  and  cheerful  mind:  know 
ye,  that  We,  of  our  special  grace,  certain  knowledge,  and  mere 
motion,  do,  by  the  tenor  of  these  presents,  give  and  grant,  as 
well  to  the  aforesaid  baron  of  Baltimore,  and  to  his  heirs,  as 
to  all  other  persons  who  shall  from  time  to  time  repair  to  the 
said  province,  either  for  the  sake  of  inhabiting,  or  of  trading 
with  the  inhabitants  of  the  province  aforesaid,  full  license  to 
ship  and  lade  in  any  the  ports  of  us,  our  heirs  and  successors, 
all  and  singular  their  goods,  as  well  movable,  as  immovable, 
wares  and  merchandises,  likewise  grain  of  what  sort  soever, 

2  L 


514  APPENDIX 

and  other  things  whatsoever  necessary  for  food  and  clothing,  by 
the  laws  and  statutes  of  our  kingdoms  and  dominions,  not  pro- 
hibited to  be  transported  out  of  the  said  kingdoms ;  and  the 
same  to  transport,  by  themselves,  or  their  servants  or  assigns, 
into  the  said  province,  without  the  impediment  or  molestation 
of  us,  our  heirs  or  successors,  or  of  any  officers  of  us,  our  heirs 
or  successors,  (saving  unto  us,  our  heirs  and  successors,  the 
impositions,  subsidies,  customs,  and  other  dues  payable  for  the 
same  goods  and  merchandises)  any  statute,  act,  ordinance,  or 
other  thing  whatsoever  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding. 

XII.  But  because,  that  in  so  remote  a  region,  placed  among 
so  many  barbarous  nations,  the  incursions  as  well  of  the  barba- 
rians themselves,  as  of  other  enemies,  pirates  and  ravagers, 
probably  will  be  feared,  therefore  We  have  given,  and  for  us, 
our  heirs,  and  successors,  do  give  by  these  presents  as  full  and 
unrestrained  power,  as  any  captain-general  of  an  army  ever 
hath  had  unto  the  aforesaid  now  baron  of  Baltimore,  and  to 
his  heirs  and  assigns,  by  themselves,  or  by  their  captains,  or 
other  officers,  to  summon  to  their  standards,  and  to  array  all 
men,  of  whatsoever  condition,  or  wheresoever  born,  for  the  time 
being,  in  the  said  province  of  Maryland,  to  wage  war,  and  to 
pursue,  even  beyond  the  limits  of  their  province,  the  enemies 
and  ravagers  aforesaid,  infesting  those  parts  by  land  and  by 
sea,  and  (if  God  shall  grant  it)  to  vanquish  and  captivate  them, 
and  the  captives  to  put  to  death,  or,  according  to  their  discre- 
tion, to  save,  and  to  do  all  other  and  singular  the  things  which 
appertain,  or  have  been  accustomed  to  appertain  unto  the 
authority  and  office  of  a  captain-general  of  an  army. 

XIII.  We  also  will,  and  by  this  our  charter,  do  give  unto 
the  aforesaid  now  baron  of  Baltimore,  and  to  his  heirs  and 
assigns,  power,  liberty,  and  authority,  that,  in  case  of  rebellion, 
sudden  tumult,  or  sedition,  if  any  (which  God  forbid)  should 
happen  to  arise,  whether  upon  land  within  the  province  afore- 
said, or  upon  the  high  sea  in  making  a  voyage  to  the  said 
province  of  Maryland,  or  in  returning  thence,  they  may,  by 
themselves,  or  by  their  captains,  or  other  officers,  thereunto 
deputed  under  their  seals  (to  whom  We,  for  us,  our  heirs  and 


APPENDIX  515 

successors,  by  these  presents,  do  give  and  grant  the  fullest 
power  and  authority)  exercise  martial  law  as  freely,  and  in  as 
ample  manner  and  form,  as  any  captain-general  of  an  army,  by 
virtue  of  his  office  may,  or  hath  accustomed  to  use  the  same, 
against  the  seditious  authors  of  innovations  in  those  parts, 
withdrawing  themselves  from  the  government  of  him  or  them, 
refusing  to  serve  in  war,  flying  over  to  the  enemy,  exceeding 
their  leave  of  absence,  deserters,  or  otherwise  howsoever  offend- 
ing against  the  rule,  law,  or  discipline  of  war. 

XIV.  Moreover,  lest  in  so  remote  and  far  distant  a  region, 
every  access  to  honors  and  dignities  may  seem  to  be  precluded, 
and  utterly  barred,  to  men  well  born,  who  are  preparing  to 
engage  in  the  present  expedition,  and  desirous  of  deserving 
well,  both  in  peace  and  war,  of  us,  and  our  kingdoms ;  for  this 
cause,  We,  for  us,  our  heirs  and  successors,  do  give  free  and 
plenary  power  to  the  aforesaid  now  baron  of  Baltimore,  and  to 
his  heirs  and  assigns,  to  confer  favors,  rewards,  and  honors, 
upon  such  subjects,  inhabiting  within  the  province  aforesaid, 
as  shall  be  well  deserving,  and  to  adorn  them  with  whatsoever 
titles  and  dignities  they  shall  appoint ;  (so  that  they  be  not 
such  as  are  now  used  in  England)  also  to  erect  and  incorporate 
towns  into  boroughs,  and  boroughs  into  cities,  with  suitable 
privileges  and  immunities,  according  to  the  merits  of  the  inhab- 
itants, and  convenience  of  the  places ;  and  to  do  all  and  singular 
other  things  in  the  premises,  which  to  him  or  them  shall  seem 
fitting  and  convenient ;  even  although  they  shall  be  such  as,  in 
their  own  nature,  require  a  more  special  commandment  and 
warrant  than  in  these  presents  may  be  expressed. 

XV.  We  will  also,  and  by  these  presents  do,  for  us,  our  heirs 
and  successors,  give  and  grant  license  by  this  our  charter,  unto 
the  aforesaid  now  baron  of  Baltimore,  his  heirs  and  assigns, 
and  to  all  persons  whatsoever,  who  are,  or  shall  be  residents 
and  inhabitants  of  the  province  aforesaid,  freely  to  import  and 
unlade,  by  themselves,  their  servants,  factors  or  assigns,  all 
wares  and  merchandises  whatsoever,  which  shall  be  collected 
out  of  the  fruits  and  commodities  of  the  said  province,  whether 
the  product  of  the  land  or  the  sea,  into  any  the  ports  whatso- 


516  APPENDIX 

ever  of  us,  our  heirs  and  successors,  of  England  or  Ireland,  or 
otherwise  to  dispose  of  the  same  there;  and,  if  need  be,  within 
one  year,  to  be  computed  immediately  from  the  time  of  unlad- 
ing thereof,  to  lade  the  same  merchandises  again,  in  the  same, 
or  other  ships,  and  to  export  the  same  to  any  other  countries 
they  shall  think  proper,  whether  belonging  to  us,  or  any  foreign 
power  which  shall  be  in  amity  with  us,  our  heirs  or  successors : 
provided  always,  that  they  be  bound  to  pay  for  the  same  to  us, 
our  heirs  and  successors,  such  customs  and  impositions,  sub- 
sidies and  taxes,  as  our  other  subjects  of  our  kingdom  of  Eng- 
land, for  the  time  being,  shall  be  bound  to  pay,  beyond  which 
we  will  that  the  inhabitants  of  the  aforesaid  province  of  the 
said  land,  called  Maryland,  shall  not  be  burdened. 

XVI.  And  furthermore,  of  our  more  ample  special  grace, 
and  of  our  certain  knowledge,  and  mere  motion,  We  do,  for  us, 
our  heirs  and  successors,  grant  unto  the  aforesaid  now  baron  of 
Baltimore,  his  heirs  and  assigns,  full  and  absolute  power  and 
authority  to  make,  erect,  and  constitute,  within  the  province  of 
Maryland,  and  the  islands  and  islets  aforesaid,  such,  and  so 
many  sea-ports,  harbors,  creeks,  and  other  places  of  unlading 
and  discharge  of  goods  and  merchandises  out  of  ships,  boats, 
and  other  vessels,  and  of  lading  in  the  same,  and  in  so  many,  and 
such  places,  and  with  such  rights,  jurisdictions,  liberties,  and 
privileges,  unto  such  ports  respecting,  as  to  him  or  them 
shall  seem  most  expedient :  And,  that  all  and  every  the  ships, 
boats,  and  other  vessels  whatsoever,  coming  to,  or  going  from 
the  province  aforesaid,  for  the  sake  of  merchandising,  shall  be 
laden  and  unladen  at  such  ports  only  as  shall  be  so  erected  and 
constituted  by  the  said  now  baron  of  Baltimore,  his  heirs  and 
assigns,  any  usage,  custom,  or  any  other  thing  whatsoever  to 
the  contrary  notwithstanding.  Saving  always  to  us,  our  heirs 
and  successors,  and  to  all  the  subjects  of  our  kingdoms  of  Eng- 
land and  Ireland,  of  us,  our  heirs  and  successors,  the  liberty 
of  fishing  for  sea-fish,  as  well  in  the  sea,  bays,  straits,  and  navi- 
gable rivers,  as  in  the  harbors,  bays,  and  creeks  of  the  province 
aforesaid ;  and  the  privilege  of  salting  and  drying  fish  on  the 
shores  of  the  same  province ;  and,  for  that  cause,  to  cut  down 


APPENDIX  517 

and  take  hedging-wood  and  twigs  there  growing,  and  to  build 
hats  and  cabins,  necessary  in  this  behalf,  in  the  same  manner 
as  heretofore  they  reasonably  might,  or  have  used  to  do.  Which 
liberties  and  privileges,  the  said  subjects  of  us,  our  heirs  and 
successors,  shall  enjoy,  without  notable  damage  or  injury  in 
any  wise  to  be  done  to  the  aforesaid  now  baron  of  Baltimore, 
his  heirs  or  assigns,  or  to  the  residents  and  inhabitants  of  the 
same  province  in  the  ports,  creeks,  and  shores  aforesaid,  and 
especially  in  the  woods  and  trees  there  growing.  And  if  any 
person  shall  do  damage  or  injury  of  this  kind,  he  shall  incur 
the  peril  and  pain  of  the  heavy  displeasure  of  us,  our  heirs 
and  successors,  and  of  the  due  chastisement  of  the  laws,  besides 
making  satisfaction. 

XVII.  Moreover,  We  will,  appoint,  and  ordain,  and  by  these 
presents,  for  us,  our  heirs  and  successors,. do  grant  unto  the 
aforesaid  now  baron  of  Baltimore,  his  heirs  and  assigns,  that 
the  same  baron  of  Baltimore,  his  heirs  and  assigns,  from 
time  to  time,  forever,  shall  have,  and  enjoy  the  taxes  and  sub- 
sidies payable,  or  arising  within  the  ports,  harbors,  and  other 
creeks  and  places  aforesaid,  within  the  province  aforesaid,  for 
wares  bought  and  sold,  and  things  there  to  be  laden,  or  unladen, 
to  be  reasonably  assessed  by  them,  and  the  people  there  as 
aforesaid,  on  emergent  occasion ;  to  whom  we  grant  power  by 
these  presents,  for  us,  our  heirs  and  successors,  to  assess  and 
impose  the  said  taxes  and  subsidies  there,  upon  just  cause,  and 
in  due  proportion. 

XVIII.  And  furthermore,  of  our  special  grace,  and  certain 
knowledge,  and  mere  motion,  We  have  given,  granted,  and 
confirmed,  and  by  these  presents,  for  us,  our  heirs,  and  succes- 
sors, do  give,  grant,  and  confirm,  unto  the  aforesaid  now  baron 
of  Baltimore,  his  heirs  and  assigns,  full  and  absolute  license, 
power,  and  authority,  that  he,  the  aforesaid  now  baron  of  Balti- 
more, his  heirs  and  assigns,  from  time  to  time  hereafter,  for 
ever,  may  and  can,  at  his  or  their  will  and  pleasure,  assign, 
alien,  grant,  demise,  or  enfeoff  so  many,  such,  and  proportionate 
parts  and  parcels  of  the  premises,  to  any  person  or  persons 
willing  to  purchase  the  same,  as  they  shall  think  convenient, 


518  APPENDIX 

to  have  and  to  hold  to  the  same  person  or  persons  willing  to 
take  or  purchase  the  same,  and  his  and  their  heirs  and  assigns, 
in  fee-simple  or  fee-tail,  or  for  term  of  life,  lives,  or  years ; 
to  hold  of  the  aforesaid  now  baron  of  Baltimore,  his  heirs  and 
assigns,  by  so  many,  such,  and  so  great  services,  customs  and 
rents  of  this  kind,  as  to  the  same  now  baron  of  Baltimore,  his 
heirs  and  assigns,  shall  seem  fit  and  agreeable,  and  not  immedi- 
ately of  us,  our  heirs  or  successors.  And  we  do  give,  and  by 
these  presents,  for  us,  our  heirs  and  successors,  do  grant  to  the 
same  person  and  persons,  and  to  each  and  every  of  them,  license, 
authority,  and  power,  that  such  person  and  persons,  may  take 
the  premises,  or  any  parcel  thereof,  of  the  aforesaid  now  baron 
of  Baltimore,  his  heirs  and  assigns,  and  hold  the  same  to  them 
and  their  assigns,  or  their  heirs,  of  the  aforesaid  baron  of  Balti- 
more, his  heirs  and  assigns,  of  what  estate  of  inheritance  soever, 
in  fee-simple  or  fee-tail,  or  otherwise,  as  to  them  and  the  now 
baron  of  Baltimore,  his  heirs  and  assigns,  shall  seem  expedient ; 
the  statute  made  in  the  parliament  of  lord  Edward,  son  of 
king  Henry,  late  king  of  England,  our  progenitor,  commonly 
called  the  "  Statute  Quia  Emptores  Terr  arum,"  heretofore 
published  in  our  kingdom  of  England,  or  any  other  statute,  act, 
ordinance,  usage,  law,  or  custom,  or  any  other  thing,  cause  or 
matter,  to  the  contrary  thereof,  heretofore  had,  done,  published, 
ordained  or  provided  to  the  contrary  thereof  notwithstanding. 

XIX.  We,  also,  by  these  presents,  do  give  and  grant  license 
to  the  same  baron  of  Baltimore,  and  to  his  heirs,  to  erect  any 
parcels  of  land  within  the  province  aforesaid,  into  manors,  and 
in  every  of  those  manors,  to  have  and  to  hold  a  court-baron, 
and  all  things  which  to  a  court-baron  do  belong ;  and  to  have 
and  to  keep  view  of  frank-pledge,  for  the  conservation  of  the 
peace  and  better  government  of  those  parts,  by  themselves  and 
their  stewards,  or  by  the  lords,  for  the  time  being  to  be  deputed, 
of  other  of  those  manors  when  they  shall  be  constituted,  and 
in  the  same  to  exercise  all  things  to  the  view  of  frank-pledge 
belonging. 

XX.  And  further  We  will,  and  do,  by  these  presents,  for  us, 
our  heirs  and  successors,  covenant  and  grant  to,  and  with  the 


APPENDIX  519 

aforesaid  now  baron  of  Baltimore,  his  heirs  and  assigns,  that 
We,  our  heirs  and  successors,  at  no  time  hereafter,  will  impose,  or 
make  or  cause  to  be  imposed,  any  impositions,  customs,  or  other 
taxations,  quotas  or  contributions  whatsoever,  in  or  upon  the 
residents  or  inhabitants  of  the  province  'aforesaid  for  their 
goods,  lands,  or  tenements  within  the  same  province,  or  upon 
any  tenements,  lands,  goods  or  chattels  within  the  province 
aforesaid,  or  in  or  upon  any  goods  or  merchandises  within  the 
province  aforesaid,  or  within  the  ports  or  harbors  of  the  said 
province,  to  be  laden  or  unladen :  And  We  will  and  do,  for  us, 
our  heirs  and  successors,  enjoin  and  command  that  this  our 
declaration  shall,  from  time  to  time,  be  received  and  allowed 
in  all  our  courts  and  pretorian  judicatories,  and  before  all  the 
judges  whatsoever  of  us,  our  heirs  and  successors,  for  a  suffi- 
cient and  lawful  discharge,  payment,  and  acquittance  thereof, 
charging  all  and  singular'  the  officers  and  ministers  of  us,  our 
heirs  and  successors,  and  enjoining  them,  under  our  heavy  dis- 
pleasure, that  they  do  not  at  any  time  presume  to  attempt  any 
thing  to  the  contrary  of  the  premises,  or  that  may  m  any  wise 
contravene  the  same,  but  that  they,  at  all  times,  as  is  fitting, 
do  aid  and  assist  the  aforesaid  now  baron  of  Baltimore,  and 
his  heirs,  and  the  aforesaid  inhabitants  and  merchants  of  the 
province  of  Maryland  aforesaid,  and  their  servants  and  minis- 
ters, factors  and  assigns,  in  the  fullest  use  and  enjoyment  of 
this  our  charter. 

XXI.  And  furthermore  We  will,  and  by  these  presents,  for 
us,  our  heirs  and  successors,  do  grant  unto  the  aforesaid  now 
baron  of  Baltimore,  his  heirs  and  assigns,  and  to  the  freeholders 
and  inhabitants  of  the  said  province,  both  present  and  to  come, 
and  to  every  of  them,  that  the  said  province,  and  the  free- 
holders or  inhabitants  of  the  said  colony  or  country,  shall  not 
henceforth  be  held  or  reputed  a  member  or  part  of  the  land  of 
Virginia,  or  of  any  other  colony  already  transported,  or  here- 
after to  be  transported,  or  be  dependent  on  the  same,  or  subor- 
dinate in  any  kind  of  government,  from  which  We  do  separate 
both  the  said  province,  and  inhabitants  thereof,  and  by  these 
presents  do  will  to  be  distinct,  and  that  they  may  be  immedi- 


520  APPENDIX 

ately  subject  to  our  crown  of  England,  and  dependent  on  the 
same  for  ever. 

XXII.  And  if,  peradventure,  hereafter  it  may  happen,  that 
any  doubts  or  questions  should  arise  concerning  the  true  sense 
and  meaning  of  any  word,  clause,  or  sentence,  contained  in  this 
our  present  charter,  We  will,  charge  and  command,  that  inter- 
pretation to  be  applied,  always,  and  in  all  things,  and  in  all  our 
courts  and  judicatories  whatsoever,  to  obtain  which  shall  be 
judged  to  be  the  more  beneficial,  profitable,  and  favorable  to 
the  aforesaid  now  baron  of  Baltimore,  his  heirs  and  assigns : 
provided  always,  that  no  interpretation  thereof  be  made,  where- 
by God's  holy  and  true  Christian  religion,  or  the  allegiance 
due  to  us,  our  heirs  and  successors,  may  in  any  wise  suffer  by 
change,  prejudice,  or  diminution  ;  although  express  mention  be 
not  made  in  these  presents  of  the  true  yearly  value  or  certainty 
of  the  premises,  or  of  any  part  thereof,  or  of  other  gifts  and 
grants  made  by  us,  our  heirs  and  predecessors,  unto  the  said 
now  Lord  Baltimore,  or  any  statute,  act,  ordinance,  provision, 
proclamation  or  restraint,  heretofore  had,  made,  published,  or 
ordained  or  provided,  or  any  other  thing,  cause,  or  matter  what- 
soever, to  the  contrary  thereof  in  any  wise  notwithstanding. 

XXIII.  In  witness  whereof  We  have  caused  these  our 
letters  to  be  made  patent.  Witness  ourself  at  Westminster, 
the  twentieth  day  of  June,  in  the  eighth  year  of  our  reign. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

ARCHIVES 

Published 

Proceedings   and   Acts  of  the  General   Assembly,  1636-37  to  1697. 

5  vols.     Baltimore. 
Proceedings  of  the  Council,  1636  to  1692.     5  vols.     Baltimore. 
Judicial  and  Testamentary  Records  of  the  Provincial  Court,  1637  to 

1657.     2  vols.     Baltimore. 
Journal  of  the  Maryland  Convention,  July  26  to  August  14,  1775. 
Journal  and  Correspondence  of   the  Council  of   Safety,  August  29, 

1775  to  July  6,  1776.     Baltimore. 
Journal  and    Correspondence   of  the    Council  of    Safety,  July  7  to 

December  31,  1776.     Baltimore. 
Correspondence  of  Governor  Horatio  Sharpe.     3  vols.     Baltimore. 
Calvert  Papers.    2  vols.    Baltimore. 

Manuscripts 

Journals  of  the  Upper  House.  Md.  Hist.  Soc,  Baltimore. 
Journals  of  the  Lower  House.  Md.  Hist.  Soc,  Baltimore. 
Acts  of  the  General  Assembly.     Md.  Hist.   Soc,  Baltimore ;    Land 

Office  and  Court  of  Appeals,  Annapolis. 
Proceedings  of  the  Council.     Md.  Hist.  Soc,  Baltimore. 
Provincial  Court  Records.     Land  Office,  Annapolis. 
County  Court  Records.    County  Seats,  except  those  for  Charles  County 

which  are  in  the  Land  Office  at  Annapolis. 
Records  of  the  Court  Leet  and  Court  Baron  of  St.  Clement's  Manor, 

1659  to  1672.     Md.  Hist.  Soc,  Baltimore. 
Land  Office  Records.     Land  Office,  Annapolis. 
Minutes  of  the  Board  of  Revenue.     Md.  Hist.  Soc,  Baltimore. 
Rent  Rolls.     Md.  Hist.  Soc,  Baltimore. 
Commission  Books.     Md.  Hist.  Soc,  Baltimore. 

521 


522  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Original  Charter  of  the  City  of  Annapolis.     Land  Office,  Annapolis. 

Wills.     Wills  Office,  Annapolis. 

Parish  Registers.     Md.  Hist.  Soc,  Baltimore. 

Calvert  Papers.     Md.  Hist,  Soc,  Baltimore. 

Gilmore  Papers.     Md.  Hist.  Soc,  Baltimore. 

Dulany  Papers.     Md.  Hist.  Soc,  Baltimore. 

Hill  Papers.     Md.  Hist.  Soc,  Baltimore. 

Proprietary  Papers.     Md.  Hist.  Soc,  Baltimore. 

Miscellaneous  Papers.     Md.  Hist.  Soc,  Baltimore. 

Newspapers 
The  Maryland  Gazette.     State  Library,  Annapolis. 

Works  of  Contemporary  Writers 

V  Aslop,  G. :  A  Character  of  the  Province  of  Maryland  in  1666.     Balti- 
more, 1880. 
Bacon,  T. :  Laws  of  Maryland  at  Large.     Annapolis,  1765. 
Baskett,  J.  :  Acts  of  Assembly  passed  in  the  Province  of  Maryland 

from  1692  to  1715.     London,  1723. 
Cook,  E.  :  The  Sot-weed  Factor:  or,  a  Voyage  to  Maryland.    London, 

1708. 
Dulany,  D. :  The  Right  of  the  Inhabitants  of  Maryland  to  the  Benefit 

of  English  Laws.     Md.  Hist.  Soc,  Baltimore. 
Dulany,  D.,  Jr. :  Considerations  on  the  Propriety  of  imposing  Taxes 

in  the  British  Colonies,  for  the  Purpose  of  Revenue  by  Act  of 

Parliament.     Annapolis,  1765. 
Eddis,  W.:  Letters  from  America,  1769  to  1777.     London,  1702. 
Green,  F. :  Laws  of  Maryland  made  since  1763.     Annapolis,  1787. 
Parks,  W. :  Collection  of  the  Laws  of  Maryland.     Annapolis,  1727. 
White,  A.:  Relatio  Itineris — Narrative  of  a  Voyage   to   Maryland, 

written  in  the  year  1634.     Baltimore,  1874. 

Works  of  Later  Writers 

Adams,  H.  B. :  Maryland's  Influence  in  Founding  a  Commonwealth, 
or  the  History  of  the  Accession  of  Public  Lands  by  the  Old  Con- 
federation.    Baltimore,  1877. 

Archer,  G.  W.  :  The  Dismemberment  of  Maryland.     Baltimore,  1885. 

Bozman,  J.  L. :  The  History  of  Maryland  from  its  Settlement  in 
1633  to  the  Restoration  in  1660.     Vol.  II.     Baltimore,  1837. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  523 

-  Brown,  W.  H. :    Maryland,  the   History  of  a  .Palatinate.     Boston, 
1884. 

Davis,  G-.  L. :  The  Day-star  of  American  Freedom.     New  York,  1855. 

Gambrall,  T.  C. :  Church  Life  in  Colonial  Maryland.    Baltimore,  1885. 

Hanson,  G.  A. :  Old  Kent,  the   Eastern  Shore  of  Maryland.     Balti- 
more, 1876. 

Harrison,  S.  A. :  Wenlock  Christison,  and  the  Early  Friends  in  Talbot 
County,  Maryland.     Baltimore,  1878. 

Hawks,  F.  L. :    Contributions  to  the    Ecclesiastical   History  of    the 
United  States.     Vol.  II.     New  York,  1839. 
single,  E. :  Parish  Institutions  of  Maryland.     Baltimore,  1883.    • 
y Johnson,  G. :  The  History  of  Cecil  County.     Elkton,  1881. 

Kilty,   J. :   The    Landholder's    Assistant    and    Land    Office    Guide. 
Baltimore,  1808.  <^ 

Kilty,  W. :  The  Laws  of  Maryland.     Annapolis,  1799. 

Lapsley,  G.  T. :  County  Palatine  of  Durham,  a  Study  in  Constitutional 
History.     New  York,  1900. 

Mayer,  L. :  Ground  Rents  in  Maryland.     Baltimore,  1883. 
^JVicMahon,  J.  V.  L. :  An  Historical  View  of  the  Government  of  Mary-^ 
jS  land,  from  its  Colonization  to  the  Present  Day.     Baltimore,  1837.' 

Morris,  J.  G. :  The  Lords  Baltimore.     Baltimore,  1874. 

Neill,  E. .:  The  Founders  of  Maryland  as  portrayed  in  Manuscripts,^ 
Provincial  Records,  and  Early  Documents.     Albany,  1876. 

Osgood,  H.  L.  :    The  Proprietary  Province  as  a  Form  of  Colonial    *- 
Government.     New  York,  1897-98. 

Perry,  W.  S. :  Papers  relating  to  the  History  of  the  Church  in  Mary- 

1      land.    Hartford,  1870-78. 

Petrie,  G. :  Church  and  State  in  Early  Maryland.     Baltimore,  1892. 

Randall,  D.  R. :  Puritan  Colony  in  Maryland.     Baltimore,  1886. 

Ridgely,  D.  :  Annals  of  Annapolis.     Baltimore,  1841. 

Riley,  E.  S. :  "The  Ancient  City,"  a  History  of  Annapolis  in  Mary- 
land.    Annapolis,  1887. 

Sainsbury,  W.  N. :  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Colonial  Series.     Lon- 
don, 1860-84. 

Schultz,  E.  T. :    First  Settlements  of  Germans  in  Maryland.     Fred- 
erick, 1896. 

Silver,  J.  A. :  The  Provisional  Government  of  Maryland.     Baltimore, 
1895. 

Sparks,  F.  E. :  Causes  of  the  Maryland  Revolution  of  1689.    Baltimore, 
1896. 

Steiner,  B.  C. :  History  of  Education  in  Maryland.    Washington,  1894. 


524  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  Protestant  Revolution  in  Maryland.    (In  American  Historical 

Association  Annual  Report,  1897.) 

Life  and  Administration  of  Sir  Robert  Eden.     Baltimore,  1898. 

Streeter,  S.  F. :   Papers  relating  to  the  Early  History  of  Maryland. 

Baltimore,  1876. 

The  First  Commander  of  Kent  Island.     Baltimore,  1868. 

Thomas,  J.  W.  :  Chronicles  of  Colonial  Maryland.     Baltimore,  1900. 
Wilhelm,  L.  W. :  Sir  George  Calvert,  Baron  of  Baltimore.   Baltimore, 

1884. 
Local  Institutions  of  Maryland.     Baltimore,  1885. 


INDEX 


Adjutant,  283,  285. 
Admiralty  court,  233.  / 

I  Agency,  colonial,  227,   336,  338,  347, 
v  348,  355,  370-373,  464-467. 
Agent  and  receiver  general,  61-72,  85, 

86,  92,  177. 

Alienation  fines,  52,  59,  64,  79,  81,  85- 

87,  92,  98,  99,  102,  167,  468,  472. 
Allen,  Bennet,  67,  456,  457. 
Annapolis,  52,  138,  142,  147,  184,  200, 

289,  325,  342,  349,  354,  370,  414,  416, 

417,  420-422,  492,  493,  505. 
Appeals,  court  of,   177,  192,  229,  234, 

235,  245,  246,  249,  367. 
Attorney  general,  58,  67,  69,  102,  153, 

158,  177,  185,  234,  252,  270,  326. 
Avalon,  charter  of,  5. 

Bachelors,  tax  on,  142,  143,  329,  412. 
Bacon,  Rev.  Thomas,  456. 
Baltimore-Town,   123,  126,    289,    416, 

418,  419. 

Bennett,  Richard,  22,  23,  24,  25. 
Bishop  of  London,  437-446,  449,  450, 

452,  455. 
Blackiston,  Nathaniel,  governor,  138; 

agent,  465,  466. 
Bladen,  Tnomas,  governor,   161,  163, 

168,  173,  286,  287,  301  et  seq.,  349-352. 
Board  of  Revenue,  66-68,  70, 73, 93, 181. 
Board  of  Trade,  91,  124,  235  et  seq., 

240,  364,  439,  466,  467. 
Bordley,  John  Beals,  123,  217,  253. 
Bordley,  Stephen,  251,  350,  351. 
Bordley,  Thomas,  350,  449. 
Boston  Port  Bill,  493. 
Bounties,  121,  403. 
Bray,  Dr.  Thomas,  439-441. 
Brent,  Giles,  19,  177. 
Burning  iron,  254,  259,  260,  263,  278. 

Calvert,  Benedict  Leonard,  governor, 
34 ;  third  lord  proprietor,  79,  154. 


Calvert,  Benedict  Leonard,  governor, 
80  et  seq.,  144,  163,  165,  166,  179. 

Calvert,  Cecilius,  first  lord  proprie- 
tor, 6,  12, 15,  21,  23:  25,  26,  28,  52, 154, 
223,  290,  422,  424-129,  461,  502,  503. 

Calvert,  Cecilius,  secretary,  68,  143, 
157,  162,  174,  182,  252,  348,  353. 

Calvert,  Charles,  fourth  lord  pro- 
prietor, 79,  88,  122,  154,  156,  267  et 
seq.,  366,  450,  471,  472. 

Calvert,  Charles,  governor,  28,  120, 
132,  163,  171,  201,  206,  257,  290,  349; 
second  lord  proprietor,  31-34,  55, 
56,  60,  79,  154,  155,  204-206,  215,  224, 
257,  263,  264,  355,  413,  461,  462. 

Calvert,  Charles,  governor,  80,  140, 
163-165,  197,  365. 

Calvert,  Frederick,  fifth  lord  pro- 
prietor, 66,  88,  95,  154,  157,  163,  171, 
357,  359,  360,  386,  450. 

Calvert,  George,  first  Lord  Baltimore, 
5,  11,  12,  13,  95,  154. 

CaTvert,  Philip,  governor,  28,  163; 
secretary,  27, 155,  171,  178,  201,  232. 

Captains,  280,  281,  282. 

Carroll,  Charles,  61,  63-65,  164,  327, 
393-397. 

Caveats,  51,  60,  72. 

Chancellor,  70, 153, 159  et  seq.,  164, 174, 
185,  186,  193,  209,  228,  232,  234,  242. 

Chancery,  court  of,  87,  232-235,  242, 
246;  examiner  in,  186. 

Chase,  Samuel,  217,  400,  494,  497. 

Circuit  courts,  235-237,  249. 

Claiborne,  William,  12-18,  20-24,  26, 
29,  257,  309,  431,  434. 

Clergy,  dues  of,  107,  112,  113,  116-118, 
162,  227,  340,  342,  438,  447,  453-458. 

College,  efforts  to  found,  141-144,  357, 
359,  436.  * 

Colonels,  281,  282. 

Commissary  general,  67,  153,  158,  177, 
180, 185, 191,  242, 243, 244, 389, 393, 486. 


525 


526 


INDEX 


Commissioners,    nomination    of,  333, 

334,  336,  337. 
Conditions  of  plantation,  50,  62,  63, 

72,  77,  122. 
Constables,  154,  184,  185,  230,  286,  342, 

403,  405-408. 
Convicts,  duty  on,  320, 321, 325, 329, 330. 
Coode,  John,  38-42. 
Copley,  Sir  Lionel,  governor,  354. 
Cornwallis,  Thomas,   16,  18-20,    177, 

184,  428. 
Corporate  colonies,  origin  of,  2;  gov- 
ernment in,  4. 
County  clerks,  60,  69,   153,  177,  189, 

190,  232,  251,  340. 
County  courts,  89,  131,  135,  187,  189, 

209,  230-232,  236-238,  241,  242,  245- 

249,  253,  340,  359,  403,  407. 
Court-martial,  286. 
Court  of  Hustings,  421. 
Court  of  Piepowder,  421. 
Cradock,  Rev.  Thomas,  144. 
Cresap,  Thomas,  307. 
Criminal  code,  277,  278. 
Currency,  81-83,  94,  126-128,  162,  343, 

371,  382,  504. 

Darnall,  Henry,  38,  61,  65,  80,  178,  326, 
328. 

Darnall,  John,  327,  328. 

Debtors,  insolvent,  136,  255,  256,  403. 

Demesne  land,  53,  57. 

Ducking  stool,  408. 

Dulany,  Daniel,  84,  114-116,  122,  123, 
167,  180,  270,  275,  385,  449. 

Dulany,  Jr.,  Daniel,  86  et  seq.,  91, 180, 
359,  393,  395,  396,  398,  399,  486-488. 

Durham,  Palatinate  of,  3, 194,  196, 197, 
228,  401. 

Dutch,  29,  30. 

Duties,  in  general,  343;  port,  89-91, 
467  et  seq.  ;  tonnage,  181,  291,  293, 
303-306,347;  on  furs,  138;  on  horses, 
329;  on  liquors,  138,  181,  325,  329, 
343 ;  on  meat,  138, 343 ;  ,on  pitch,  329, 
343;  on  rum,  142;  on  servants,  139, 
320-322,  325,  329, 330, 343 ;  on  slaves, 
139,  322,  329,  343 ;  on  tar,  329,  343 ; 
on  tobacco,  64,  79,  80,  127, 140,  171- 
173,  199,  290,  343-348;  on  turpen- 
tine, 329 ;  on  wine, 138,  143, 322,  325, 
329,  343. 


Eden,  Sir  Robert,  governor,  74,  157, 
163,  169-171,  277,  329,  451,  452,  491, 
503. 

Elections,  40,  204,  206,  208-217,  403. 

English  statutes,  the  question  of  their 
extension  to  Maryland,  44,  81,  82, 
162,  165,  178,  180,  183,  211,  216,  227, 
256-277,  303,  364,  366,  382,  390,  438, 
459,  467. 

Escheat,  49,  56,  57,  59,  60,  64,  69,  75, 
77,  97,  102,  103. 

Estates,  bounds  of,  98,  99,  410;  loca- 
tion of,  44,  104, 105, 131 ;  size  of,  105. 

Evelin,  George,  16,  17,  18,  231. 

Examiner  general,  59,  70,  71. 

Exports,  125. 

Fairs,  160,  417,  418,  421. 

Farmers  and  receivers  of  rents,  65, 

77,  93,  94,  99,  327. 

Fees,  controversy  over,  170,  178,  227, 
235,  242,  243,  244,  340,  365,  366,  373- 
400;  regulation  of,  43,  73,  102,  112, 
116,  117,  167,  183,  191,  192,  298,  367, 
457,  4(58,  472;  thought  to  be  exces- 
sive, 40,  165,  166,  240,  254,  345;  re- 
duction of,  112,  118,  219,  348,  454, 
467;  income  from,  180,  182;  collec- 
tion of,  71,  166,  186,  343;  payment 
of,  in  tobacco,  107,  116,  117,  118, 
127 ;  in  the  place  of  taxes,  130,  249, 
372. 

Fendall,  Josias,  governor,  26-28,  38, 

78,  155,  163,  171,  201. 
Field  officers,  285,  286. 

Fines  and  forfeitures,  227,  340,  348, 

360-362,  367,  368,  373. 
Fleet,  Henry,  12,  29. 
Fort  Christiana,  306. 
Fort  Cumberland,  308,  316,  317,  330, 

331. 
Fort  Frederick,  308,  313,  330,  331. 
Freeholds,  52,  105. 
Fuller,  William,  24,  25. 

Garth,  Charles,  agent,  372,  373,  474, 
481. 

Gerrard,  Thomas,  26,  38,  177,  430. 

Gilbert,  Sir  Humphrey,  patent  of,  2,  3. 

Government,  support  of,  156,  167, 171- 
174,  178,  181-184,  291-294.  296.  299, 
301, 344-348,  361 373, 467, 469,  472, 474. 


INDEX 


Governor's  house,  142-144,  168,  173, 
349-353,  356,  359. 

Grain,  44,  120-123. 

Greene,  Thomas,  governor,  21,  163, 
171. 

Grievances,  in  general,  101,  102,  163, 
460,  467,  470,  472,  473, 474 ;  concern- 
ing :  the  granting  of  land,  72 ;  price 
of  land,  77 ;  alienation  fines,  85 ; 
ferries,  88;  vacating  grants  contain- 
ing surplus  land,  101;  proprietary 
instructions,  163;  creation  of  offices, 
186;  one  person  holding  many 
offices,  190,  234  ;  sale  of  offices,  191 ; 
sheriffs,  187,  188;  heavy  taxation, 
199;  the  lord  proprietor's  veto,  225; 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  provincial 
court,  239;  English  statutes,  266; 
Catholics,  326,  327;  fees,  345,  374, 
382,  383, 386,  390,  468 ;  license  money 
from  ordinaries,  358,  359;  vestries, 
412 ;  ordinance  power,  468. 

Hamersly,  Hugh,  secretary,  157. 

Hammond,  Phil,  216,  217,  288. 

Hart,  John,  governor,  64, 121, 138, 139, 

140,  163,  164,  173,  349,  355,  356,  442- 

446, 
Henderson,  Jacoh,  commissary,  443- 

446,  448-450,  454. 
Holt,  Chief  Justice,  opinion  of,  42. 
Hood,  Zachariah,  477,*  478,  483. 
Hundred  courts,  230,  232. 

Indians,  3,  12-15,  19,  20,  24,  38,  41,  97, 
175,  176,  278,  281,  283,  290,  300,  303, 
307-312,  318,  320,  321,  328,  329,  406, 
409,  410,  427,  428,  437,  465. 

Ingle,  Richard,  19-22,  257,  309,  431. 

Instructions,  proprietary,  in  general, 
156,  158,  159,  161,  162,  163;  concern- 
ing: Claiborne,  15;  taking  posses- 
sion of  the  government,  23,  25  ;  land, 
and  the  revenue  arising  thereon,  50, 
53,  59,  60,  62,  63,  65,  66,  67,  69,  78,  85, 
86,  100;  ferries,  88;  erection  of  a 
county,  231;  license  money  from 
ordinaries,  323, 357, 358, 359;  military 
stores  and  parliamentary  proce- 
dure, 302;  fees,  379,  386;  toleration, 
425;  dues  to  the  clergy  and  the 
division  of  parishes,  454. 


Jenifer,  Daniel  of  St.  Thomas,  180, 181, 

253. 
Jesuit  priests,  49,  426-430,  461. 
Johnson,  Thomas,  217,  400,  494,  497. 
Joseph,  William,  36,  37. 
Judges  of  the  land  office,  67,  69,  70, 

72,  73,  85,  88,  89,  153,  158,  177, 191, 

389,  486. 
Justices  court,  232,  241. 
Justices  of  the  quorum,  246. 

Land  council,  60,  61,  62, 177. 
Lawrence,  Sir  Thomas,  secretary,  62, 

189,  354,  355,  466. 
Lawyers,  145,  146,  178,  216,  217,  449, 

458,  478,  503. 
Lewger,  John,  secretary,  120,  177, 184, 

185,  309,  427,  428. 
License  money,   from   ferries,  87-89, 

102,  142,   227,   472;    from   hawkers 

and  pedlers,  319,  321,  322,  360;  from 

ordinaries,  140,   143,   144,  167,  168, 

227,  252,  319-324,  330,  348-350,  353- 

360,  474. 
Lieutenants,  281. 
Lloyd,    David,    agent    and    receiver 

general,  66,  67. 
Lloyd,    Edward,    president     of    the 

council,  363,  364. 
Lloyd,  Philemon,  judge  of   the  land 

office,  69,  72,  178. 

Majors,  281,  282. 

Manorial   courts,   7,  52,  53,  408-411, 

518. 
Manors,  52,  53,   58,  75,   96,  105,  155, 

195,  197,  401,  402,  407-410. 
Manufactures,  121, 123,  124,  404,  486  et 

seq. 
Markets,  160,  417,  419,  421. 
Military  stores,  84,  90,  172,  173,  227, 

289-303,  343,  349,  386,  406,  472. 
Money  bills,  224,  311,  317-338,  358, 476. 
Mustermaster  general,  184,  281. 

Naturalization,  175, 176. 

Naval  officers,   67,  91,  154,   177,   185, 

343,  346. 
Navigation  Acts,  159,  461,  462. 
Nicholett,  Charles,  199. 
Nicholson,    Francis,    governor,     137, 

138,  207. 


528 


INDEX 


Non-Importation  Association,  491  et 
seq. 

Oath,  of  councillors,  174,  175,  432 ;  of 
delegates,  36,  202,  214,  221;  of  an 
elector,  211  et  seq. ;  of  the  governor, 
158, 159,  431  et  seq. ;  of  a  judge,  166, 
232,  270-276. 

Offices,  appointment  to,  7, 153, 158, 161, 

167,  183,  186-190,  192,  254,  373,  392, 
511 ;  centralization  of,  153,  176,  177, 
181,  183,  190,  192,  193;  creation  of, 
7,  43,  153,  175,  176,  183-186,  235,  373, 
392, 472,  511 ;  efforts  to  put  a  tax  on, 

168,  227,  317,  321,  333,  335,  336,  337  ; 
sale  of,  183,  190,  191,  193,  354. 

Ogle,  Samuel,  governor,  82,  163,  166- 
168,  179,  189,  275,  276,  294,  302,  350, 
352,  503. 

Ordinance  power,  7,  8,  9,  40,  43,  50, 
101,  109,  160,  175,  176,  192,  193,  204, 
205,  373,  374,  381-384,  388-399,  402, 

413,  468,  470,  5li,  512. 

Paca,  William,  217,  399,  400,  494,  497. 
Palatines,  122-125,  128,  156. 
Paris,  Ferdinand  John,  agent,  471. 
Parliamentary  procedure,  34, 167,  205, 
215,  216,  219-224,  294,  295,  297-303, 

414,  472. 

Paupers,  136,  341,  403,  405. 

Payne,  John,  41. 

Pennsylvania,  houndary  dispute,  29- 
33,  122,  156,  176,  303,  306,  307 ;  tax 
on  proprietor's  quit-rents,  100 ;  Pala- 
tines, 122 ;  influence  of  popular  sen- 
timents, 128,  226 ;  Maryland  sons  in 
Philadelphia  Academy,  145 ;  militia, 
286;  fees  in,  383,  385. 

Pillory,  238,  254,  261,  263,  277,  278,  408, 
477. 

Planters,  large  vs.  small,  104-108,  111 
et  seq. 

Population,  general  character  of,  10, 
131;  spareness  of,  10,  34,  147;  in- 
crease in,  44,  131  et  seq.,  183,  343, 
375,  377,  408,  423,  450. 

Ports,  109,  117,  119,  120,  125  et  seq., 
160,  305,  306,  413,  414,  516. 

Prerogative,  royal,  encroachment  on, 
239,  332,  467. 

Primogeniture,  10,  49. 


Prisons,  254-256,  405. 
Prizes,  118,  121,  403. 
Probate  court,  233,  243,  246. 
Proprietary  estates,  53,  54,  65,  66,  75, 

78,  100,  168,  227,  317,  330,  333,  334  et 

seq.,  336,  337. 
Proprietary  provinces,  3,  5,  41. 
Protestant  Association,  39,  41. 
Protestants  vs.  Catholics,  22,  24, 32, 34, 

35,  37  et  seq.,  64,  130,  137,  139,  164, 

200,  326-328,  330,  334,  356,  393,  423- 

425,  430-439,  447,  464,  502. 
Provincial  convention,  494  et  seq. 
Provincial    court,   57,  177,    192,  229, 

231,  233-235,   237,  239-241,  246-253, 

411,  412,  485,  486. 
Provisional  government,  500. 
Proxies,  195,  196,  198. 
Puritan    commissioners,    government 

of,  22-25,  197,  201,  207,  282,  340,  434, 

461. 
Puritans,  21,  22,  24,  434,  435. 

Quaker,  434-440. 

Quifcrents,  34,  52,  59,  60,  64,  65,  69, 
78-85,  92-95,  98-100,  107,  121,  172, 
290,  300,  301,  343-345,  364,  472. 

Quo  warranto,  writ  of,  33,  40,  463. 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  patent  of,  2,  3. 

Receivers  general,  59,  60,  92,  177,  184, 
185. 

Register  of  the  land  office,  60,  69,  70, 
177,  184,  185. 

Remonstrances  of  the  Lower  House  of 
Assembly,  314,  482. 

Rent-roll  keepers,  69,  93. 

Rent-rolls,.  59,  60,  65,  80,  82,  84,  92,  99. 

Resolutions  of  the  Lower  House  of 
Assembly,  in  general,  101,  221,  222, 
226  et  seq., 264;  concerning:  surplus 
land,  56,  101 ;  tobacco  duty  for  the 
support  of  government,  172;  elec- 
tions, 211 ;  members  of  the  lower 
house  accepting  office,  213;  paying 
members  of  the  upper  house  for 
their  services  in  Assembly,  219; 
English  statutes,  211,  264,  269;  par- 
liamentary procedure,  297;  march- 
ing the  militia,  315  et  seq.;  license 
money  from  ordinaries,  323,  358; 
right  of  nominating  commissioners, 


INDEX 


529 


334 ;  propriety  of  imposing  a  double 
tax  on  land  held  by  Catholics,  334 ; 
propriety  of  imposing  a  tax  on  the 
proprietor's  quit-rents,  334  et  seq.; 
propriety  of  ifnjposing  a  tax  on  lucra- 
tive offices,  335;  governor's  house, 
352 ;  license  money  from  ordinaries, 
358;  allowance  to  the  council,  365; 
paying  the  clerk  of  the  council,  369, 
372;  fees,  388,  390;  access  to  the 
public  records,  372 ;  the  Stamp  Act, 
479-481. 

Revolution  of  1689,  37^4,  58,  90,  111, 
175,  176,  205,  208,  210,  234,  265,  291, 
344,  354,  374,  402,  424,  437,  464. 

Roads,  44,  119,  123,  124,  130,  131, 164, 
403,  504. 

Rousby,  Christopher,  35,  462,  463. 

Royal  provinces,  4. 

Schools,  130,  137  145,  343,  405,  504. 

Scire  facias,  writ  of,  42. 

Secretary,  51,  58,  59,  60,  62,  65,  68,  69, 
70,  88,  92,  153,  174,  177,  180,  182, 184, 
185,  189,  191,  205,  206,  354  et  seq., 
358,  389,  393,  486. 

Sergeants,  280,  281,  406. 

Servants,  105,  129,  130,  133-136,  320, 

321,  341. 

Seymour,  John,  governor,  441,  442. 

Sharpe,  Horatio,  governor,  86,  87,  89, 
91,  100,  125,  136,  140,  141,  143,  161, 
163,  168  170,  179,  180,  216,  227,  252, 
253,  277,  287,  288,  312,  313,  316,  320, 

322,  328,  329,  332,  334,  348,  353,  357, 
362,  451,  473,  477,  478,  488,  503. 

Sheriffs,  56,  58,  71,  92,  93,  154,  184-188, 

190,  200,  204,  208  et  seq.,  246,  247, 

249,  256,  342,  403,  405,  446. 
Slaves,  119,  130,  132,  139,  238,  278,  320, 

329,341,342,406,408. 
Sons  of  Liberty,  485,  486. 
Spiritual  court,442,446  et  seg.,451, 453. 
Stamp  Act,  180,  477-488. 
St.  Inigoes,  89,  303  et  seq. 
St.  Mary's,  19,  24,  35,  52, 130,  200,  349, 

420. 
Stocks,  254,  259,  278,  408. 
Stone,  William,  governor,  21-26,  163, 

171,  231,  431. 
Suffrage,  34,  78,  131,  198-201,  225,  226, 

422. 

2  M 


Surplus  land,  55,  56,  60,  62,  99,  101, 

102,  167,  468,  472. 
Surveying,  51,  52,  55,  58,  59,  61-63,  70, 

71,  97,  98. 
Surveyor  general,  51,  59,  70,  177, 185. 
Swedes,  29,  306. 

Talbot,  George,  34,  35,  463. 

Taxables,  341,  342,  406,  407. 

Taxes,  in  general,  186,  339-343,  403, 
406;  levying  of,  175,  176,  310,  404, 
405,  411,  440;  collection  of,  186; 
lightness  of,  130;  thought  to  be 
heavy,  199;  fees  as  taxes,  388,  391, 
398;  exemption  from,  8,  403,  519; 
imposition  by  the  English  Parlia- 
ment, 478  et  seq.,  481,  486;  on:  the 
proprietor's  estates  and  quit-rents, 
100,  330,  333-337;  carriage  wheels, 
142,  143,  320;  bachelors,  142,  143, 
329,  412;  card  tables.,  143;  billiard 
tables,  143,  329;  lucrative  offices, 
227,  333,  335,  336,  337 ;  on  persons 
(poll  tax),  283,  286,  289  et  seq.,  363, 
438;  lawsuits,  320;  legal  proceed- 
ings, 329;  land,  329  et  seq.,  333,  334, 
336,  337. 

Tobacco,  culture  of,  44,  82,  104,  106, 
119, 121,  124,  129,  130,  436 ;  price  of, 
34,  106,  111,  118  et  seq.,  131,  132,  218, 
453;  as  money,  107,  112-118,  126, 
128,  379,  380,  385,  386,  454,  455,  503; 
duty  on,  79,  80,  81,  127;  legislation 
to  limit  the  quantity  of,  106-109, 
110,  111-114 ;  legislation  to  improve 
the  quality  of,  109, 110,  114-118,  394. 

Toleration,  religious,  423-427,  430-437, 
502,  503. 

Townshend  Acts,  488. 

Treasurers,  154, 177,  184-189,  299,  343, 
371. 

Trial  by  jury,  53,  56,  246,  247,  388, 
390,  392,  408,  479. 

Utie,  Nathaniel,  26, 177. 

Vacant  land,  54,  70,  73,  77. 

Vestrymen,  410-412. 

Veto,  the  lord  proprietor's,  34,  40,  56, 
113,  156,  159,  161,  162, 199,  202,  210, 
222,  223,  225,  226,  267,  273,  275,  379, 
380,  451,  454. 

Virginia,  vs.  Maryland,  11-16;  treat- 


530 


INDEX 


ment  of  the  Puritans,  21,  22 ;  reduc- 
tion of,  by  the  Puritancommissioners, 
22,  23;  price  of  land  in,  77;  regula- 
tion of  ferries  in,  88;  tobacco  legis- 
lation in,  107  et  seq.,  110,  114,  455; 
Palatines  in,  122 ;  college  of  William 
and  Mary,  140,  145;  Bacon's  re- 
bellion, 28,  202,  291,  341 ;  Governor 
Calvert  in,  309;   during  the  fourth 


intercolonial  war,  317,  319,  320,  322, 
323 ;  fees  in,  378,  383,  385,  386. 
Voting,  compulsory,  201 ;  viva  voce,  212. 

Weights  and  measures,  403. 
Whipping-post,  254,  260,  263,  278. 
Wilkinson,  Christopher,  commissary, 
443-446. 

Yeo,  Rev.  John,  436. 


0 


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